...but wait, there's more... From the Atlantic in response to the anonymous Op-Ed.

It makes a very good point, if there are Trump senior staffers who know Trump is unfit to serve, yet prop him up to get tax and SCOTUS, that's not right. This is trouble.

This Is a Constitutional Crisis

Quote:

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A cowardly coup from within the administration threatens to enflame the president's paranoia and further endanger American security.

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Quote:

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If the president's closest advisers believe that he is morally and intellectually unfit for his high office, they have a duty to do their utmost to remove him from it, by the lawful means at hand. That duty may be risky to their careers in government or afterward. But on their first day at work, they swore an oath to defend the Constitutionand there were no "riskiness" exemptions in the text of that oath.

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IThis anonymous chicken s$ it is probably the work of Bannon or his ilk. Juice up the media resistance while also giving them hope. Always be distracting.

Anarchistbear said:

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IThis anonymous chicken s$ it is probably the work of Bannon or his ilk. Juice up the media resistance while also giving them hope. Always be distracting.

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...and knock Woodward and that creepy Hans Gruber ish Kavanaugh off the front page.

Now people think it was Mike Pence who wrote the OpEd. That would be amazing.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lodestar-mike-pence-anonymous-new-york-times_us_5b905dd5e4b0511db3dec1e1

That actually make sense on many levels.

1) There's the recent book calling Pence the Shadow POTUS.
2) Manafort brought Pence in as VP, so something is rather fishy.
3) Once the GOP got the tax cut, and when Kavanaugh gets in, Trump is disposable.

And there's this:

Quote:

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Vice President Mike Pence and "the field" lead offshore bookmaking picks as the White House mole behind the anonymous bombshell New York Times op-ed blasting President Trump.

Pence was listed at 2-to-3 odds on the site MyBookie as the fifth column official who claims to be working behind the scenes to stop some of Trump's policies that they find wrongheaded.

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On Lawrence O'Donnell show he is speculating the person was Dan Coats!

BUT -- about the word "lodestar."

Apparently, Pence and not many other humans use this term. This term is used in the op-ed. If I am writing an op-ed and want to mask my identity, I will intentionally write differently than I normally do and definitely not use any phrasings that are peculiar to me. I would also intentionally throw folks off my trail by borrowing things from the writing style of others in the administration.

I could easily say the use of lodestar means that it's definitely not Pence.

Dang, I think Kamala would have made many pee pee under this questioning. Possible Kavanaugh let out a dribble based on his facial expressions (kind of painful to watch).

No way it's Pence. Even if it were Pence, he would have fed it through an underling. I believe it could be Coats or one of the military guys.

I hope someone offers a $10M bounty for the person to reveal themselves. That would make for some good reality TV.

This person should be executed as the season 2 cliffhanger.

B.A. Bearacus said:

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BUT -- about the word "lodestar."

Apparently, Pence and not many other humans use this term. This term is used in the op-ed. If I am writing an op-ed and want to mask my identity, I will intentionally write differently than I normally do and definitely not use any phrasings that are peculiar to me. I would also intentionally throw folks off my trail by borrowing things from the writing style of others in the administration.

I could easily say the use of lodestar means that it's definitely not Pence.

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IIRC, it's a legal "term of art" used, most particularly, in appellate briefs and opinions, which would suggest that "Anonymous" is a lawyer who is either an academic or accustomed to practicing at the appellate level.

If you're a republican, you have to see that the end is near, right?

Wouldn't it make more sense to band together and resist trump and force him to resign?

Stay with me here. If they did that, sure they're going to lose trump's base. But you get to paint yourself as the heroes who saved the country from trump. You probably gain traditional conservatives, independents, and maybe even moderate democrats

Sure that doesn't seem super appealing. But what's the alternative? When trump goes down (and he will) what's your future looking like then? The Republican Party will probably be crippled for decades. (Especially if mueller finds something really really bad). And with the changing demographics in this country, the Republican Party could simply just die.

As a republican, are you really willing to make the bet that trump is going to survive this?

B.A. Bearacus said:

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Dang, I think Kamala would have made many pee pee under this questioning. Possible Kavanaugh let out a dribble based on his facial expressions (kind of painful to watch).

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I saw people lie in my depositions for 36 years. The good judge evaded so as avoid perjury. He was like an 8th grade boy in the principal's office being questioned about a theft from a locker (yes, Bubba Clinton did the same routine). The Republican that threw him a lifeline is an obstructionist.

ducky23 said:

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If you're a republican, you have to see that the end is near, right?

Wouldn't it make more sense to band together and resist trump and force him to resign?

Stay with me here. If they did that, sure they're going to lose trump's base. But you get to paint yourself as the heroes who saved the country from trump. You probably gain traditional conservatives, independents, and maybe even moderate democrats

Sure that doesn't seem super appealing. But what's the alternative? When trump goes down (and he will) what's your future looking like then? The Republican Party will probably be crippled for decades. (Especially if mueller finds something really really bad). And with the changing demographics in this country, the Republican Party could simply just die.

As a republican, are you really willing to make the bet that trump is going to survive this?

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None of that matters.

The Republican Party is as happy as a pig in s**t, because so much of its destructive, anti-human, wasteful agenda is getting passed, and they will have a strangle hold on the judiciary for decades, and Trump's "base" appears not to care about all the legal and policy moves which will continue to screw them economically - apparently not because they care much about the Weekly Standard, Heritage Foundation, Hoover Foundation, Wall Street, traditional Republican Party or conservatism, which lost out to Trump forever, but because they like Trump's attitude.

So, even though what we have thought of as Republicanism now (since Trump began winning the Primaries) comprises only a tiny percentage of the population, the Trump base voters have nowhere else to go and/or vote for than those people for whom Trump is, in the truest sense, a useful idiot.

But, nevertheless, that "coalition" (between Trump Base and Standard Republican voters) is not going to change in the foreseeable future, being held together largely by the incredibly strong power of what is called in this country "race" politics.

Many of the salutary changes in this country have come about by accident (i.e., the election of Wilson, due to the stupid Republican Split, the Great Depression, which allowed there to be a government suited to modern needs; and the modern Republican Party, excessively overplaying their hand, leading to the Great Recession which made room for Obama - although the hegemony of money still mostly strangled what could have been a lot of reasonable development during his 8 years, and heavily weighs against the possibility of a more real democracy and more perfect union.

So, even though I see an eventual split in the Republican Party between the Trump Base (which is currently its super-majority) and the rest of the party, I really don't believe that there's enough intelligence and understanding in the Trump Base to, in any meaningful way, fight the stranglehold money has on our politics, and the democratic left and center left here have a pretty bad record in getting anything past the obstructive power of money - all with odds of brooking the currently established political structure quickly approaching the low odds any sort of meaningful political change has at present in Russia.

But, nevertheless, I do believe that the Democratic Party needs, more than ever, to keep up the fight, and keep the faith, until one of those accidents of history occurs which will allow sanity to break out, spilling all over our lives which will have, of human necessity, been waiting for that to happen.

One of the "greatest" pieces of modern propaganda has been convincing the very people being made destitute by Republican policy that the "tax cuts are great"...so much so that they will actually shill the speaking point that "yeah, but the economy is great" to each Trump transgression and destruction of American character/institution.

There is a huge difference between the economy being "strong" and the economy being exploited for the benefit of a select segment of America and the corporate consolidation of financial and economic power...and those who claim this "strength" give not a moment's consideration to the fact that the economy could be doing just as well or better with a different president serving a different segment of America for a healthier underpinning of longterm sustainable economic growth and the engine that comes from a thriving middle class and the highest standards of living.

Parties need to constantly change and need ferment The Republicans were allegedly "dead" during the Obama wave of 2008 but come the Tea Party and revitalization and then Trump and now they control all of Congress, the Presidency and the vast majority of state houses.

It's the Democrats that in eight years became a marginal regional party but Trump is the best thing that ever happened to them. They've become energized are competitive in places they haven't been for years and are also beginning to topple their hierarchies-Democrats who never faced a primary challenge are being overthrown , the Clintons are gone, the "radical" policies of Sanders are now centrist and rather than having the life sucked out of them by DC, they have grassroots energy all over the country.

At the heart of this is people want more democracy not less. The parties are authoritarian and beholding to their corporate masters not the people. Our democracy has been a sham for a while- the parties, the courts, endless wars, corporate welfare, the security state. The people have seen through this and the rigged system. We don't really need two parties, one that is that the most enthusiastic and the other, the second most enthusiastic promoter of capitalism in the world. Trump is a charlatan but was smart enough to run on both an anti-government and anti- corporate platform, which is a popular sentiment.

All of what has happened since Trump- on left and right- is a rebirthing and an upheaval of our political processes. None of us yet know what will happen but it's a good thing.

The Republicans can't get rid of Trump because they have a tiger by the tail. Likewise the Democratic "leadership" is also on the way out to be replaced by a younger, more diverse crew.

This is a period of great chaos and change- hopefully for the good but that's unclear.

B.A. Bearacus said:

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BUT -- about the word "lodestar."

Apparently, Pence and not many other humans use this term. This term is used in the op-ed. If I am writing an op-ed and want to mask my identity, I will intentionally write differently than I normally do and definitely not use any phrasings that are peculiar to me. I would also intentionally throw folks off my trail by borrowing things from the writing style of others in the administration.

I could easily say the use of lodestar means that it's definitely not Pence.

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Actually the buzzword that leaped out to me is AMORALITY. I can see incompetence but amorality strikes me as a bible banger and the head bible banger is Pence. So maybe the UK bookies are right to assign the best odds to Pence.

re: Kavanaugh, seems like another D.C./Opus Dei motherfccker. In which case, he's going to hell to burn in eternity for lying and sleazing. Reminds me of Paul Ryan, another Catholic who should die and go to hell. Anthony Kennedy is in the same boat for selling out his SCOTUS seat and his family's involvment with Trump.

History will not fare well for these shttheads.

Another Bear said:

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B.A. Bearacus said:

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BUT -- about the word "lodestar."

Apparently, Pence and not many other humans use this term. This term is used in the op-ed. If I am writing an op-ed and want to mask my identity, I will intentionally write differently than I normally do and definitely not use any phrasings that are peculiar to me. I would also intentionally throw folks off my trail by borrowing things from the writing style of others in the administration.

I could easily say the use of lodestar means that it's definitely not Pence.

---

Actually the buzzword that leaped out to me is AMORALITY. I can see incompetence but amorality strikes me as a bible banger and the head bible banger is Pence. So maybe the UK bookies are right to assign the best odds to Pence.

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Maybe Pence's speechwriter. Let's be real, there is pretty much zero chance Pence drafted this oped. No way would the NYT be able to keep that under wraps and the repercussions would be too high for Pence to stick his neck out like that.

Guest appearance by:

Props to Furder Cory Booker for dropping the truth bomb and telling everyone it's civil disobedience. The GOP are in massive coverup mode, both with Trump and now with Kavanaugh.

The United States of America simply can not have a SCOTUS who lies and lies under oath. Kavanaugh is damaged good and not qualified, and he's a LIAR with a cover-up now. He is NOT Supreme Court material. He's a fccking bad Catholic school boy going to HELL.

Basically the GOP has played dirty pool with the opposition and the constitution. My understanding is if you get caught cheating, you get your butt stomped, maybe shot. Dems need to fulfill this butt stomping to counteract the lying, cover-ups and anti-democracy bullshtt.

Another Bear said:

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B.A. Bearacus said:

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BUT -- about the word "lodestar."

Apparently, Pence and not many other humans use this term. This term is used in the op-ed. If I am writing an op-ed and want to mask my identity, I will intentionally write differently than I normally do and definitely not use any phrasings that are peculiar to me. I would also intentionally throw folks off my trail by borrowing things from the writing style of others in the administration.

I could easily say the use of lodestar means that it's definitely not Pence.

---

Actually the buzzword that leaped out to me is AMORALITY. I can see incompetence but amorality strikes me as a bible banger and the head bible banger is Pence. So maybe the UK bookies are right to assign the best odds to Pence.

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A serious question: Is Pence intelligent enough to have composed and organized the thoughts which are contained in the anonymous Op Ed? Pence is almost entirely doctrinaire; both politically (which led him to run the State of Indiana into the ground as Governor in service to the most insane republican fiscal policies) and religiously (which causes him to espouse the most insane social policies since Attila). I wouldn't think that a man like that would have the intellectual and moral capability necessary to raise the questions about the meaning of procedure that are raised in the Op Ed. Also, in line with the above, I've never heard Pense speak in anything other than complete platitudes. So I also can't imagine he could marshall the specifics that were laid out in the article.

That's a fair assessment of Pence. The only thing I have is, the man wants to be POTUS. That and the Manafort stuff.

Methinks the whole internal resistance thing is really a distraction from the Kavanaugh hearing. But once Kavanaugh is comfirmed, the "soft coup" will be on.

It must take 100 sensible people in the WH working every minute each day to keep the President from doing something irreversibly bad. Anyone who says they "knew" he would be this bad is lying. As bad as he was campaigning and in the debates, the current day to day is exponentially worse.

To be fair, it does eliminate at least Sanders and Conway.

tRump on Op Ed leak:

""They're all saying, you know, it's got to be at a fairly low level. ... I see all the people that are saying such great things. There's a lot of love in the administration, and the White House is truly, as you would say, a well-oiled machine it is working so well." Axios



*I actually think, and I say this in all seriousness, that tRump is dumber than a bag turnips.

When we all have a moment, let us watch this Obama speech at the University of Illinois, where he apparently lays into Rebublicans and their spiritual and moral leader, Donald Trump. Running time: one hour.

kjkbear said:

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It must take 100 sensible people in the WH working every minute each day to keep the President from doing something irreversibly bad. Anyone who says they "knew" he would be this bad is lying. As bad as he was campaigning and in the debates, the current day to day is exponentially worse.

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"The claim that everything will turn out okay because there are people inside the White House who secretly aren't following the President's orders, that is not a check," Obama said. "I'm being serious here. That's not how our democracy's supposed to work. These people aren't elected. They're not accountable."
He added, "They're not doing us a service by actively promoting 90% of the crazy stuff that's coming out of this white house, and then saying, 'Don't worry, we're preventing the other 10%.' That's not how things are supposed to work. This is not normal. These are extraordinary times. And they're dangerous times."

Obama is right bearister. No breathing person can say Trump is a capable President, and believe it. You don't have to be for "the other side" to come to that conclusion. This is not either or. The washing machine in the photo works better than the White House.

kjkbear said:

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Obama is right bearister. No breathing person can say Trump is a capable President, and believe it. You don't have to be for "the other side" to come to that conclusion. This is not either or. The washing machine in the photo works better than the White House.

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With regard to the other side from us:

"But over the past few decades, the politics of division and resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican party," Obama said.
Over the past few years, the party, he said, has embraced conspiracy theories like the legitimacy of his birth certificate, attacked voting rights and rejected climate change."

...and an articulate way to say the proletariat are chumps:

"Each time we've gotten closer to those ideals, somebody somewhere has pushed back. The status quo pushes back. Sometimes the backlash comes from people who are genuinely, if wrongly, fearful of change. More often it's manufactured by the powerful and the privileged who want to keep us divided and keep us angry and keep us cynical because it helps them maintain the status quo and keep their power and keep their privilege. " Barrack Obama

*Like AT&T using a $20 billion tax cut to lay off thousands of employees and outsource the jobs to India, Mexico and the Philippines.

"But her emails! And Benghazi! No collusion! Libs! Fake news! Both sides!"


Did I miss anything?


How any con can look at this administration and feel anything other than abject shame...

Obama is also stumping for Dems in California congressional races...and holy mother, they have a chance. For prime Reagan and hardline cold war warriors, it's a big FCCKING deal. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel when Trump is gone.

Quote:

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The former president will head to Orange County to help campaign for Democrats Josh Harder, TJ Cox, Katie Hill, Gil Cisneros, Katie Porter, Harley Rouda and Mike Levin. All are running in Republican-held districts won by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, making their races top targets for Democrats.

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Unfortunately there will be a YUUGE mess left and the damage will be done...but I think the GOP will be mortally wounded, despite getting the 2 SC seats and tax cuts.

Side prediction: if Kavanaugh gets in...he'll die of a heart attack or similar, you know because he believes in God and he sinned.