I have to be honest – I didn’t think the release of the tape by Michael Cohen was that big of a deal. So, it proved beyond a doubt – ONCE AGAIN – that Dolt45 is a liar. But, we already knew that. It proved that he was involved in it -Any thinking person already knew that.
I have to admit, though, that this Twitter Thread did give me second pause.
Along, with the admission, that there are more tapes. The thing is…this couldn’t be the only woman that was paid off. The NDA was too boilerplate -meaning, it’s something that they did routinely. So, of course, there are other women out there. But, other tapes don’t have to limit themselves just to women. I doubt that it did. There is hanky stuff on those other tapes.
So, here’s the twitter thread that gave me food for thought.
(THREAD) TEN REASONS THE FIRST COHEN TAPE IS MUCH WORSE THAN ANYONE YET REALIZES. Early coverage of this bombshell exclusive on CNN has missed almost the entirety of this story, which could shape Trump's presidency. Read on for more. And I hope you'll share this with others, too. pic.twitter.com/pZR0AJZvzT
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) July 25, 2018
Seth Abramson
Verified account @SethAbramson
REASON #1: THERE ARE MORE TAPES. Team Trump is playing defense tonight as though this is all Cohen can hurt them with. It’s not—Cohen only released this tape as a defense against false info about the tape leaked by Team Trump. And if Cohen taped Trump once, he did it many times.
REASON #2: A BAD PRIVILEGE WAIVER. Trump waiving attorney-client privilege to let Giuliani spread *false* info about the tape not only backfired by convincing Cohen’s lawyer to release the tape, it could also hamstring Trump’s claims of privilege on the McDougal matter later on.
REASON #3: COHEN IS FLIPPING. By preemptively burning Cohen—making up a lie about the McDougal matter which had Cohen suggesting a payment in cash—Team Trump has absolutely ensured what previously was just very likely: Cohen will flip on Trump. And he has *many* stories to tell.
REASON #4: THE AUDIO ESTABLISHES MOTIVE. CNN edited the audio to exclude some inculpatory moments—notably, Trump telling Cohen, of damning info on his past relationships, “all you’ve got to do is delay it for [inaudible].” That helps establish this as an *election*-related plot.
REASON #5: IT ADDS NEW WITNESSES TO THE CASE. In the audio, a woman’s voice—possibly Rhona Graff’s—is heard, meaning we now know someone else besides Cohen can testify about what Trump said in this conversation. An assistant gets him a Coke, too, so she may also be a witness now.
REASON #6: THE FULL AUDIO ESTABLISHES CONTEXT. CNN appears to have wrongly attributed a reference to “David” as meaning David Pecker, head of AMI. But when Cohen talks about “information regarding our friend ‘David'” he’s referring to Trump’s alias for adulteries, David Dennison.
REASON #7: TEAM TRUMP DOUBLED THE DECEIT QUOTIENT. The audio puts Trump at the center of a pre-election plot to lie to voters about info that could have swayed their votes, but now it’s even worse, as Trump sent Giuliani out to lie to voters about a tape they can hear themselves.
REASON #8: TRUMP CLEARLY PROPOSES AN ILLICIT CASH PAYMENT. Trump’s state of mind—one-half what makes up a crime—is established by his comment about Ivana’s divorce filings, but also by his *clear* attempt to propose an untraceable cash payment rather than (as Cohen says) a check.
REASON #9: IVANA’S RAPE ALLEGATIONS WILL NOW RETURN. That Team Trump was terrified, pre-election, of Ivana’s divorce filing getting out—and Trump’s muffled reference to “a woman” (likely Ivana) not wanting it out—will raise new questions about whether Trump paid *Ivana* off, too.
REASON #10: THE TAPE SUGGESTS MANY WOMEN, NOT JUST A FEW. Cohen repeatedly says that he needs to set up a company to deal with “all the stuff, all the stuff,” which tells Americans that *many* more women than Karen McDougal were paid off by Trump pre-election—as Bannon has said.
BONUS REASON #1: SHELL CORPORATIONS. The calmness and ease with which Cohen and Trump discuss setting up shell corporations suggests this was a common method for hiding inculpatory evidence. Cohen is going to spill the beans on *all such corporations* to Robert Mueller, and soon.
BONUS REASON #2: A WOMAN. Though this is a very minor point, Trump’s comment about Ivana—”you’ve got a woman who doesn’t want it unsealed”—underscores how he speaks about women in private. Calling his first wife and the mother of three of his kids “a woman” is unsettling to hear.
BONUS REASON #3: MARK BURNS. The audio reveals that Trump wanted to continue to use as a campaign surrogate Mark Burns, who was found in early September 2016 to have lied about his military service, education, and more. Cohen shuts him down on that, but the exchange is *telling*
BONUS REASON #4: GIVE IT TO ME. When Cohen raises using a shell corp to handle “all the information regarding our friend David [Dennison]”—the lies Trump told about his adulterous affairs—Trump says, cryptically, “give it to me,” underscoring how involved he was and wanted to be.
BONUS REASON #5: ALAN WEISELBERG. We now have reason to think—due to what Cohen says on the tape—that Trump Org exec Alan Weiselberg was involved in Trump’s conspiracy to violate election laws. So this tape has up to four witnesses who’ll confirm Trump is lying about all of this
CONCLUSION: Don’t believe Trump’s surrogates, stooges, or clandestine adviser-pundits: this is hard evidence of an election felony. The tape establishes motive, context, and state of mind for hiding from the FEC and voters unreported campaign contributions made by Cohen to Trump.
…………………………….
That it’s gotten to this point is ridiculous and another example of watching White Privilege in action.
Could you imagine what would be happening if this was 44?
Uh huh
Uh huh
But, this is just the opening salvo. It will be interesting to see how this progresses.
https://twitter.com/EdanClay/status/1022657086394695681
The nightmare continues….
https://twitter.com/JoaquinCastrotx/status/1022659538951069696
https://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow/status/1022651232593354753
https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1022657586653540352
BREAKING…….
https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1022658310011535360
https://twitter.com/MarshallCohen/status/1022648560930746368
Grandma to Carson, where are you? LOL
😄😄😄
I was shopping for our little sweetie pie today. I bought him some diapers, 2 boxes of capri sun and some delicious cherries. I’ll pick him up an outfit this weekend.
Facebook suffers largest value drop in Wall Street history
The cost of Facebook’s privacy missteps caught up with the social media giant this week, sending its stock down as much as 20 percent today, a loss of more than $100 billion in value. Worries about the rising costs of privacy regulations, along with declining growth in users and revenue, played a key role in the selloff, which started Wednesday night after Facebook reported quarterly earnings.
By Craig Timberg and Elizabeth Dwoskin •
Read more »https://s2.washingtonpost.com/877f9a/5b5a365afe1ff616fd8b9b21/YXdhcmVvZjQxMUBnbWFpbC5jb20%3D/7/63/3a569220054ddfca9b49a25bb24a75b5
Michigan GOP boasted about stuffing ‘Dem garbage’ into gerrymandered districts
07/26/18 11:21 AM—UPDATED 07/26/18 11:32 AM
By Steve Benen
When partisans go through the process of creating gerrymandered district lines, it’s easy to imagine them describing their efforts in crude and raw terms. But it’s one thing to imagine the language; it’s something else to see the emails documenting it. The New York Times reported:
Tim O’Brien, a Dolt45 biographer, wrote about Weisselberg yesterday.
Privately, some Trump lawyers have expressed concern that Mueller will stitch together several episodes, encounters and pieces of evidence, like tweets, to build a case that Trump embarked on a broad effort to interfere with the investigation, NYT reports. https://t.co/kxeWA4bLyS— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 26, 2018
Hollering 😅 😅
https://twitter.com/goldengateblond/status/1022357665765183488
https://twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/1022541990884503552
Loyal Trump executive Allen Weisselberg has been summoned to testify before a grand jury in the Michael Cohen probe https://t.co/QfypCScwtf
— R.M. Schneiderman (@RMSchneiderman) July 26, 2018
WATCH: Children separated from their parents during the Holocaust recall lasting trauma they experienced from forced separation. TODAY is the deadline to reunite families. We’re calling on @POTUS to end zero tolerance & reunite children that remain separated from their parents. pic.twitter.com/KV0u9eCOQT
— ADL (@ADL_National) July 26, 2018
Mick Jagger is 75 today: pic.twitter.com/hhGcYHf7mv
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) July 26, 2018
BWA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA
Betsy DeVos’s $40 million yacht set adrift by vandals.
Police are combing over this video for leads. pic.twitter.com/MaOhCFiBfd
— Red T Raccoon (@RedTRaccoon) July 26, 2018
Go Nancy Smash
Nancy Pelosi on the motivation to impeach Rosenstein: “I don’t know, but what I’ve heard is Jim Jordan wants to take attention away from the scrutiny that he is under in Ohio, that could be a part of it.” (via ABC) pic.twitter.com/qzIiTLIj3M
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 26, 2018
To Ease Pain of Trump’s Trade War: $12 Billion in Aid for Farmers
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/24/us/politics/farmers-aid-trade-war.html
Republicans want to drug test welfare recipients — they should test bankers as well
SNIP
Presumably, we believe that those with kids should have more money to spend on food, clothing, and schooling for their kids. Certainly, they should not take the tax subsidies we provide and spend them on drugs. At the very least, we should drug test everyone who takes the child tax credit to ensure that the money is not misspent. Anything less would sell out the children.
THIS
Or maybe there is a difference between “handouts” and subsidies designed to induce specific behavior. OK, I’ll bite, but that means that all of Wall Street — and shareholders too — should have been subjected to drug testing after receiving bailouts in 2008 and 2009.
https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-want-to-drug-test-welfare-recipients-they-should-test-bankers-too-2017-4
WELFARE for those who voted for him, and are hurting because of HIS TRADE WAR.
JUST BUYING THEM TO SHUT THEM UP BEFORE THEM MIDTERMS
One of the farmers that supports Trump called this bailout a ‘band aid’ and mentioned it will be a negligible amount compared to their real income losses. They supposedly couldn’t stand PBO, which is why they voted for Trump. What they fail to understand is that even though he knew they didn’t like him, PBO was their biggest trade ally. This move is akin to putting a bandage on a deep knife wound.
These farmers are white ,so does that mean they’ll be drug tested, ALSO TOO?
It’s called WELFARE.
Education Secretary DeVos makes things tougher for defrauded students
07/26/18 12:44 PM
By Steve Benen
………………………..
The new rules won’t take effect right away – a public-comment period is poised to get underway – but they are scheduled to be implemented next summer.
And if this sounds at all familiar, it’s because this is hardly the first time Donald Trump’s Education secretary has taken steps like these.
The Obama administration also created a special team at the Department of Education to closely scrutinize dubious claims from for-profit colleges. Once DeVos joined the cabinet, she tapped a dean from a for-profit college to lead the team – and wouldn’t you know it, investigators examining alleged abuses found themselves “marginalized, reassigned or instructed to focus on other matters.”
Secret Derp State Society 🌊🗽🇺🇸 (@TurtlesgaloreMR) Tweeted:
WARNING!
Georgia is at it again!! My husband checked his voter registration a couple months ago and was purged w/o notice. I checked mine at that time and I was still registered. I checked again today and I’m suddenly PURGED.
Remember to consistently check your registration! https://twitter.com/TurtlesgaloreMR/status/1021779320560340992?s=17
First, grab a tissue. Then watch this dad, who works three jobs, surprise his daughter with her dream dress for the 8th grade school dance after telling her he couldn’t afford it. (Video credit: Style Exchange Boutique/FB) #allthefeels #becauseofthemwecan pic.twitter.com/UKPLDRwwK6
— #becauseofthemwecan (@Becauseofthem) July 26, 2018
Stevie Wonder saw this coming:
Will NEVER give a penny to that wench.
I won’t either but I’ve got to say I’ve been wondering what it’s really like in the Trump occupied WH. And how crazy is he, really?
Liza, my take on his mental state is that he is insane.
Maybe all those cocaine parties fugged him up?
I am sure he has had untreated Std’ s too. I also read somewhere that his own father did not like him/ Don’t know about his mother.
MUTHAPHUCKA, PLEASE!!!
Hardline conservative US Rep. Jim Jordan will run for House speaker
Eliza Collins and Deirdre Shesgreen,
USA TODAY Published 11:53 a.m. ET
July 26, 2018
WASHINGTON – Republican Rep. Jim Jordan has told colleagues he plans to run for House speaker, a move that would spark a contentious leadership battle in the House GOP conference just a few months before the November election.
Jordan — one of the most powerful conservatives in Congress — plans to announce his bid Thursday, according to three GOP sources familiar with his plans. The three sources declined to speak on the record to avoid getting ahead of Jordan’s announcement.
Jordan’s bid for the top leadership spot replacing current speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin comes just one day after he and his conservative allies filed articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in an escalating battle with the Department of Justice over the agency’s investigation into Russian meddling into the 2016 election.
https://twitter.com/seekarete/status/1022455904715919360
UH HUH
UH HUH
See how that works.
The @whca fought tooth and nail to have Fox News substantially included in briefings. Now a former Fox news exec is in charge of the entire press operation at the WH and is imposing a fascist ban on press. Weird how that works. https://t.co/NwHMgNdGBk
— meta (@metaquest) July 26, 2018
Breaks my heart.
IF he wants these to be his hills…so be it.
…………………………………
Jerry Jones is ignoring the NFL-NFLPA agreement to work together by saying Cowboys will be forced to stand for the anthem. In the same press conference, he says the team will continue its relationship with Papa John’s. pic.twitter.com/fh3cxBsex9
— Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) July 25, 2018
I hate that racist sob
Last Friday, stories came out about Trump getting coked up with 14-year olds. Then they trot out the Playboy models like clockwork. https://t.co/f842tlUTOn
— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) July 25, 2018
Sex with an adult – even in less-than-monogamous, chaste circumstances – is less damaging that sex with children who are victims of human trafficking. That’s why they’re running these media Ops.
— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) July 25, 2018
It’s only happened four or five times in a row.
Maybe consider that it’s coordinated.
— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) July 25, 2018
Word of the Day : July 26, 2018
Inchmealplay
adverb INCH-meel
Definition: little by little, gradually-
Defines the laborious process of NAILING 45, doesn’t it?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/inchmeal-2018-07-26?pronunciation&lang=en_us&dir=i&file=inchme01&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=wotd&utm_content=pron
Hmmph
Facebook shares dive 19%, shedding $120 billion in market capitalization
Jessica Guynn and Mike Snider, USA TODAY
Published 9:34 a.m. ET
July 26, 2018
SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook shares dove 19 percent Thursday, with the social networking giant shedding about $120 billion in market value after the company warned of slowing sales growth.
Traders braced for a decline in tech stocks as the market opened Thursday, with a potential cascading effect likely to hit competitors Snap and Twitter. Facebook remained down 20 percent in premarket trading Thursday after plunging as much as 24 percent in after-hours trading Wednesday.
Chief financial officer David Wehner triggered the selloff when he said Facebook’s sales growth would continue to slow through the rest of the year. Shares, which had already declined 7 percent after hours, then tumbled further after the comments on a conference call with analysts.
Oh dear God! The government is kidnapping people’s kids. This has to be taken to the Hague for human rights abuse. Everyone involved need to be prosecuted.
https://twitter.com/rulajebreal/status/1022478018449747969
Ain’t this the truth.
…………………………
Michael Grunwald @ MikeGrunwald
-Obama never had numbers this abysmal, but the frame for all his coverage was Unpopular President.
-Of course it never occurred to me to pitch my bosses: Obama’s re-elect #’s are under 50%, how about a story on Democrats who still like him?
Hopefully to the waiting arms of Scotland Yard :)
Poland’s anti-Kremlin ruling party was approached by Steve Bannon with the idea to establish a European far-right alliance – along with a bunch of pro-Kremlin parties (https://t.co/93MQ8VV4Az).
Read this blunt rejection (https://t.co/clRG3SnPYi) translated&posted by Marcin Rey. pic.twitter.com/nbeb3y7u1g
— Szabolcs Panyi (@panyiszabolcs) July 25, 2018
NEW POLL: By **31 points** Americans believe the GOP is responsible for any problems with the ACA. Good luck in November! https://t.co/NC4WNKAx5I pic.twitter.com/dt3lhRMoKI— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) July 25, 2018
Adam Best @ adamcbest
Look at how much youth registration (18-29) is up in these states:
AZ: 8%
FL: 8%
IN: 10%
MN: 5%
MT: 4%
NC: 6%
NV: 7%
OH: 6%
PA: 16%
VA: 10%
WI: 6%
Because he’s not actually ahead. When Beto moves to 90% name id, Cruz knows he will be behind. If he’s not already.
— Neera Tanden 🌊 (@neeratanden) July 26, 2018
Cruz called for an “emergency” session on family separation. It’s not actually that hard to tell when a politician is in a panic for his career.
— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) July 26, 2018
LOL
Yeah, Ted has debating skills in technical terms. But he’s also a preening oleaginous shirthead. And O’Rourke is appealing. So this is move from weakness. No incumbent decides to do a bunch of debates for the fuck of it. https://t.co/4C5QrmDlIg
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 26, 2018
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Man who vandalized Trump’s Walk of Fame star bailed out by person who did it years ago: report https://t.co/8FqcG5Gc6s pic.twitter.com/q7Pf3Lw2eU— The Hill (@thehill) July 26, 2018
GET HIM, BETO!!!
……………………………….
News: @TedCruz challenges @BetoORourke to five debates over the next three months, each on different topics https://t.co/gzNMPzBE02 #txsen
— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) July 25, 2018
This is a sign that Ted Cruz’s internal numbers are not headed in the right direction https://t.co/UMrxd1THMW
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) July 25, 2018
Very tough battle ahead and uphill. But I agree. Real sign that Cruz’s internal numbers are bad and that he could lose. https://t.co/MC0Nnbwkw7
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 26, 2018
My theory is that his support is softer than the public polls suggest, and even those show him barely at 50%. He wants to nationalize/ideologize the race around a series of hard ideological issues and thinks debates are vehicle to do that. https://t.co/OLA6WO9CKR
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 26, 2018
And to be clear, I’m not saying o’rourke is winning or will win. It’s an **extremely** tough climb. But candidates cruising to reelection don’t propose multiple debates. Even if you’re the biggest shitlord in the universe, which Ted is.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 26, 2018
Does Trump deserve re-election in 2020?
MI: 28% deserves re-election, 62% give another person a chance
MN: 30% deserves re-election, 60% not
WI: 31% deserves re-election, 63% not
July 15-19, RVs
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) July 25, 2018
If Trump is re-elected in 2020 I think I’ll become catatonic and spend the rest of my life staring out a window.
These #2 don’t surprise me one bit.
The question should be
Does Trump need to be IMPEACHED?
Congressional preference, per new NBC/Marist polls (Dem-controlled Congress vs. GOP-controlled one):
MI: D+9
MN: D+12
WI: D+8
July 15-19, RVs
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) July 25, 2018
I don’t get why all the MSNBC shows don’t put all their segments online. Hayes has segments that I’m not even interested in, and the best one from his show last night isn’t even available. Hayes had asked a good question of a former prosecutor. He didn’t understand why Dolt45 wasn’t making a stink about the Cohen video. The prosecutor said that, from viewing the tape, if he had to guess, he believes that the Special Master (the person reviewing all of Cohen’s stuff and determining what’s allowable under lawyer/client privilege and what’s not), came back to Cohen/Dolt45, and told them that this tape wasn’t going to be allowed under client privilege, because it was obvious THAT A CRIME WAS BEING COMMITTED, and that is the ONE exception to attorney/client privilege.
If they didn’t want her to make clear that was the reason this wasn’t covered by privilege, they could stop her, by removing attorney/client privilege objection to the tape. That was his explanation. And, he had a lot of other interesting criminal points. Can’t believe THAT is the segment that’s NOT online….UGH.
I keep on reminding myself…we’re a First World Country, supposedly.
………………………………………
Hospitals know how to protect mothers. They just aren’t doing it.
Alison Young, USA TODAY
7:21 a.m. CDT July 26, 2018
Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) Tweeted:
On the way we learned that Mariia Butina was arrested, the Trump administration that day unveiled a new rule dropping the long-standing requirement that organizations like the NRA have to disclose their major donors to the IRS.
Why that new rule? Why that day? https://t.co/3eYdrXRKg0 https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1022292405536604160?s=17
https://twitter.com/CarolLeonnig/status/1022288115807862784
https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1022259454312673287
Quiet as a muthaphucka 😠😠
https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1022298493547933703
https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1022306512390246402
I honestly don’t understand why Maddow is the only one, it seems, that let’s you access her entire show. There was a former prosecutor on Hayes last night that gave a superb explanation of why Dolt45 waived privilege with this video. I hope that this is the explanation.
https://twitter.com/allinwithchris/status/1022270965865238528
FULL PVIDEO-FULL PODCAST
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuclhE9syUU
Stop the Speaker (@StopTheSpeaker) Tweeted:
Paul Ryan seems determined that his legacy reflect that he fought to the death on what he calls ‘welfare reform,’ and what everyone else calls kicking people off Food stamps.
https://t.co/wLBnVKTyfe
https://twitter.com/StopTheSpeaker/status/1022312284713099264?s=17
https://twitter.com/EllenKurz/status/1022319088901730310
https://youtu.be/ycWPnmUQ7cU
Good Morning, Everyone 😄😄😄
Good Morning, Rikyrah & 3 Chics Family.
Great, detailed post, Rik. Thanks!
The fact that we are being subjected to 3 years of 45 & his shadiness, nefarious, lying ASS, …. I.CAN.NOT