Tag: Trump wants to be a dictator

McEnany Hints ‘Rogue Intelligence Officers’ Targeted Trump

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed Tuesday, without evidence, that “rogue intelligence officers” are behind reports that Donald Trump knew about Russia offering bounties to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“These are rogue intelligence officers who are imperiling our troops’ lives,” McEnany said at her press briefing.

Pressed by a reporter to clarify if she was truly alleging that members of the intelligence community “are going after Trump,” McEnany said, “It very possibly could be.” Continue reading.

‘Straight up fascism’: Trump’s disturbing propaganda meme draws sharp blowback‘Straight up fascism’: Trump’s disturbing propaganda meme draws sharp blowback

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump once again is under fire, this time after posting an old, dark meme that’s appeared on literally hundreds of web pages on social media sites like Twitter and Reddit.

Oddly, it’s not the first time Trump has posted this meme. He did so the day the House impeached him.

The text reads: “In reality they’re not after me they’re after you. I’m just in the way.” Continue reading.

A field guide to Trump’s dangerous rhetoric

All leaders are demagogues. You may not realize this, because we’ve come to associate the word “demagogue” with only dangerous populist leaders. But in Greek, the word just means “leader of the people” (dēmos “the people” + agōgos “leading”).

Some demagogues are good, and some are dangerous. The fundamental difference between leaders who are good demagogues and leaders who are dangerous demagogues is found in the answer to this simple question: Are they accountable for their words and actions?

Obviously, an unaccountable leader is dangerous in any political community. Continue reading.

After announcing modest police reforms, Trump pivots quickly to a law-and-order message in appeal to his base

Washington Post logoOver the past week, President Trump has signed an executive order to protect public monuments and statues from vandalism. He accused a Black Lives Matter leader of committing “treason.” He threatened a federal crackdown on protesters and vowed “retribution” against vandals, whom he labeled “terrorists.” And he praised a version of New York City’s “stop-and-frisk” policing strategy that was phased out years ago.

Since signing an executive action on police changes on June 16 in the Rose Garden, Trump has shifted almost exclusively to “law-and-order” rhetoric — while dropping almost any pretense of personally addressing the widespread public anger over police brutality that has sparked nationwide demonstrations.

The president’s posture comes as he has sought to energize his conservative political base in response to polls that show diminishing public approval over his handling of both the racial justice protests and the coronavirus pandemic. After framing his police executive action as an effort to balance the interests of victims’ families and police officers, Trump has sided squarely with the law enforcement community, reinforcing widespread skepticism about his commitment to addressing complaints of racial bias and systemic abuses in police departments that have harmed African Americans. Continue reading.

Why Bill Barr may have ‘gone too far’ this time in trying to protect Trump

AlterNet logoWhen President Donald Trump was expressing his frustration over former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation in 2018, he famously remarked, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” — a reference to his infamous far-right attorney who was an ally of Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Trump later found an attorney general who, unlike Jeff Sessions, turned out to be the loyalist he was hoping for: Bill Barr.

Journalist Joan Walsh,  in an article this week for The Nation, argues that Trump found his Roy Cohn in Barr. But she said that now Barr is becoming “sloppier” as he becomes “more brazen.”

“Barr’s decline into blatant but ineffectual lawlessness is proof that Trumpism is a degenerative disease,” she said. Continue reading.

Barr Tried To Undermine Michael Cohen Case That Implicated Trump

Attorney General Bill Barr directed Justice Department officials to draft legal memos undermining the campaign finance hush money case that brought down Michael Cohen and implicated President Donald Trump, according to a report in the New York Times.

Barr had the Office of Legal Counsel draft the memo, the report said. And the prosecutors reportedly “resisted” the effort. Since the case is finished — and Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 — there isn’t a whole lot Barr could do to affect the case. It may raise questions about whether Trump could be criminally prosecuted for his related conduct once he’s out of office.

The report reveals new depths Barr has undertaken in his crusade to provide Trump the full protection and exoneration he desires from his attorney general. Barr’s efforts on this front, which include his lies and spin about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, his interference in the sentencing of Roger Stone, his push to drop charges against Michael Flynn, and the investigation of the Russia probe led by U.S. Attorney John Durham, have already been extensive and widely criticized. Continue reading.

Michael Flynn, Barack Obama and Trump’s claims of ‘treason’

Washington Post logoOn Jan. 5, 2017, President Barack Obama received a briefing from intelligence officials in the Oval Office about the investigation into Russian efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump. When the briefing was over, he asked Vice President Joe Biden, FBI Director James B. Comey, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and national security adviser Susan E. Rice to stay behind for an additional discussion about incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn.

What happened next is the subject of intense speculation by President Trump’s supporters. Citing no specific evidence, Trump has claimed Obama engaged in “treason.”

In recent days, Flynn’s lawyers released notes, apparently taken by former FBI deputy assistant director Peter Strzok, about the meeting. The notes are cryptic — and Strzok’s lawyer told The Fact Checker that Strzok did not attend the meeting. So that means the notes may recount what someone else — perhaps Comey — told him about the meeting. Continue reading.

White House intensifies effort to install Pentagon personnel seen as loyal to Trump

Washington Post logoThe White House is intensifying an effort to hire Pentagon personnel with an undisputed allegiance to President Trump at a moment when his relationship with Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper has become strained, current and former officials said.

The changes in mid-level leadership are poised to create a more avowedly political Defense Department and could erode the influence of Esper, who spoke out against Trump’s proposed deployment of active-duty troops to quell unrest in U.S. cities after the killing of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police

White House officials are now redoubling efforts as Trump complains to aides that he has never had a defense secretary who is fully aligned with his foreign policy views and accuses Pentagon officials of trying to undermine him, according to a senior administration official. Continue reading.

Inside Barr’s Effort to Undermine Prosecutors in N.Y.

New York Times logoThe firing of the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan was foreshadowed by a disagreement over a case linked to President Trump.

Shortly after he became attorney general last year, William P. Barr set out to challenge a signature criminal case that touched President Trump’s inner circle directly, and even the president’s own actions: the prosecution of Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s longtime fixer.

The debate between Mr. Barr and the federal prosecutors who brought the case against Mr. Cohen was one of the first signs of a tense relationship that culminated last weekend in the abrupt ouster of Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney in Manhattan. It also foreshadowed Mr. Barr’s intervention in the prosecutions of other associates of Mr. Trump.

By the time Mr. Barr was sworn into office in February, Mr. Cohen, who had paid hush money to an adult film star who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump, had already pleaded guilty and was set to begin a three-year prison sentence, all of which embarrassed and angered the president. Continue reading.

HHS whistleblower’s controversial claim: Azar is punishing him

Rick Bright claims the HHS secretary instructed staffers not to cooperate with him in his new role.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar is illegally retaliating against a whistleblower who spoke out about the failures of the government’s coronavirus response, the whistleblower claimed on Thursday.

Rick Bright, who was ousted in April as chief of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, filed an amended complaint with a federal watchdog alleging that Azar recently has tried to disrupt his new work at the National Institutes of Health.

The federal scientist, who cites a secondhand claim that Azar directed staff not to collaborate with him, details examples of HHS staff who failed to respond to requests in his new role at NIH, where he is focused on ramping up diagnostics for the coronavirus. The complaint centers on Bright’s relationship with Gary Disbrow, his former deputy, who replaced Bright as acting BARDA chief, and comments that Disbrow allegedly made. Continue reading.