Last Call For Skinned Like Flynn

And now we see if anyone in the Trump regime will actually do anything about the felons and traitors running the country, as it seems Michael Flynn is now facing possible charges.

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn denied to FBI agents in an interview last month that he had discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador to the United States before President Trump took office, contradicting the contents of intercepted communications collected by intelligence agencies, current and former U.S. officials said. 

The Jan. 24 interview potentially puts Flynn in legal jeopardy, as lying to the FBI is a felony, but any decision to prosecute would ultimately lie with the Justice Department. Some officials said bringing a case could prove difficult in part because Flynn may attempt to parse the definition of sanctions. 

A spokesman for Flynn said he had no response. The FBI declined to comment.

But remember, there's nothing to investigate, and most likely AG Jeff Sessions won't lift a finger. Neither will any other Republicans choose to do so.

Less than a month and we already have what, like a half-dozen government-breaking scandals piling up?  Besides Russian, there's Trump's China pay-for-play, the Cabinet of Billionaires, Sessions is worth one by himself, frankly.  Conway and Spicer are still employed, and of course the Muslim ban.

This is a disaster full of con artists, crooks, and criminals.  And nobody will do a thing about it, it seems.

Orange You Glad It's Over

Trump just gave the most insane press conference the world has ever seen a US President give, and it was outright bonkers.

I ran for president to present the citizens of our country. I am here to change the broken system so it serves their families and their communities well. I am talking -- and really talking on this very entrenched power structure, and what we're doing is we're talking about the power structure; we're talking about its entrenchment. As a result, the media is going through what they have to go through too often times distort - not all the time - and some of the media is fantastic, I have to say - they're honest and fantastic. 

But much of it is not a - the distortion -- and we'll talk about it, you'll be able to ask me questions about it. But we're not going to let it happen, because I'm here again, to take my message straight to the people. As you know, our administration inherited many problems across government and across the economy. To be honest, I inherited a mess. It's a mess. At home and abroad, a mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country; you see what's going on with all of the companies leaving our country, going to Mexico and other places, low pay, low wages, mass instability overseas, no matter where you look. The middle east is a disaster. North Korea - we'll take care of it folks; we're going to take care of it all. I just want to let you know, I inherited a mess. 

Beginning on day one, our administration went to work to tackle these challenges. On foreign affairs, we've already begun enormously productive talks with many foreign leaders, much of it you've covered, to move forward towards stability, security and peace in the most troubled regions of the world, which there are many. We have had great conversations with the United Kingdom, and meetings. Israel, Mexico, Japan, China and Canada, really, really productive conversations. I would say far more productive than you would understand. 

We've even developed a new council with Canada to promote women's business leaders and entrepreneurs. It's very important to me, very important to my daughter Ivanka. I have directed our defense community headed by our great general, now Secretary Mattis. He's over there now working very hard to submit a plan for the defeat of ISIS, a group that celebrates the murder and torture of innocent people in large sections of the world. It used to be a small group, now it's in large sections of the world. 

They've spread like cancer. ISIS has spread like cancer - another mess I inherited. And we have imposed new sanctions on the nation of Iran, whose totally taken advantage of our previous administration, and they're the world's top sponsor of terrorism, and we're not going to stop until that problem is properly solved. And it's not properly solved now, it's one of the worst agreements I've ever seen drawn by anybody. I've ordered plan to begin building for the massive rebuilding of the United States military. Had great support from the Senate, I've had great from Congress, generally. 

We've pursued this rebuilding in the hopes that we will never have to use this military, and I will tell you that is my - I would be so happy if we never had to use it. But our country will never have had a military like the military we're about to build and rebuild. We have the greatest people on earth in our military, but they don't have the right equipment and their equipment is old. I used it; I talked about it at every stop. Depleted, it's depleted - it won't be depleted for long. And I think one of the reason I'm standing here instead of other people is that frankly, I talked about we have to have a strong military. 

We have to have a strong law enforcement also. So we do not go abroad in the search of war, we really are searching for peace, but its peace through strength. At home, we have begun the monumental task of returning the government back to the people on a scale not seen in many, many years. In each of these actions, I'm keeping my promises to the American people. These are campaign promises. Some people are so surprised that we're having strong borders. 

Well, that's what I've been talking about for a year and a half, strong borders. They're so surprised, oh, he having strong borders, well that's what I've been talking about to the press and to everybody else. One promise after another after years of politicians lying to you to get elected. They lied to the American people in order to get elected. Some of the things I'm doing probably aren't popular but they're necessary for security and for other reasons.

Now, he went on for over an hour like this.  Just rambling on and on to the press.  He finally did take some questions about half-an-hour in, but it was a disaster.

Mike Flynn is a fine person, and I asked for his resignation. He respectfully gave it. He is a man who there was a certain amount of information given to Vice President Pence, who is with us today. And I was not happy with the way that information was given. 

He didn't have to do that, because what he did wasn't wrong -- what he did in terms of the information he saw. What was wrong was the way that other people, including yourselves in this room, were given that information, because that was classified information that was given illegally. That's the real problem. 

And, you know, you can talk all you want about Russia, which was all a, you know, fake news, fabricated deal, to try and make up for the loss of the Democrats and the press plays right into it. In fact, I saw a couple of the people that were supposedly involved with all of this -- that they know nothing about it; they weren't in Russia; they never made a phone call to Russia; they never received a phone call. 

It's all fake news. It's all fake news. The nice thing is, I see it starting to turn, where people are now looking at the illegal -- I think it's very important -- the illegal, giving out classified information. It was -- and let me just tell you, it was given out like so much.
I'll give you an example. I called, as you know, Mexico. It was a very, very confidential, classified call. But I called Mexico. And in calling Mexico, I figured, oh, well that's -- I spoke to the president of Mexico; I had a good call. All of a sudden, it's out there for the world to see. It's supposed to be secret. It's supposed to be either confidential or classified, in that case. 

Same thing with Australia. All of a sudden, people are finding out exactly what took place. The same thing happened with respect to General Flynn. Everybody saw this. And I'm saying -- the first thing I thought of when I heard about it is: How does the press get this information that's classified? How do they do it? 

You know why? Because it's an illegal process and the press should be ashamed of themselves. But more importantly, the people that gave out the information to the press should be ashamed of themselves, really ashamed.

It just got worse from there, but the point is that Trump is well beyond Nixon's "bunker mentality" and "enemies list" phase in 1974.

And it's been less than a month.

Mad Dog's NATO Shakedown

Defense Secretary James Mattis is once again leading the Trump regime's military posturing to our NATO allies, saying that if European governments don't start paying up for protection from Russia, the Trump regime will start pulling out.

Defense Secretary James Mattis used his first NATO meeting to warn European governments that the U.S. could scale back its pledge to defend Europe if ally nations don’t increase military spending. 

“America will meet its responsibilities, but if your nations do not want to see America moderate its commitment to the alliance, each of your capitals needs to show support for our common defense,” according to a transcript of his remarks at the gathering in Brussels. 

A month after President Donald Trump described the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as “obsolete,” ministers from the 28 alliance countries met on Wednesday to suss out what role the new administration will play in the allies’ common defense. Mattis’s strong words will echo into Thursday as foreign chiefs assemble in Bonn, Germany, for the Group of 20 meeting, which will be Rex Tillerson’s inaugural European foray as secretary of state. 

During his election campaign and in interviews since his victory, Trump demanded that European nations contribute a larger share to their defense. Currently, the U.S. accounts for about 70 percent of the alliance’s overall defense expenditure. 

In a bilateral meeting on Wednesday with French Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian, Mattis discussed “how allied commitments to NATO contribute to the unity of the alliance,” according to an e-mailed statement from his spokesman. France’s military spending falls short of NATO targets.

To be fair, 70% of NATO's spending is a hell of a lot of leverage, but it looks like Trump wants to use that leverage as loudly and as inelegantly as possible.   This is an ugly shakedown, and the problem with bullies who do that is once you start giving in to them on that, they'll keep shaking you down. I'm fairly sure there will be lots of resistance to this from more nationalistic forces in Europe, ironically it might help elect the kind of European leaders who think NATO is obsolete as well.

Of course...maybe that's the point.

StupidiNews!

• A rash of anti-Semitic bomb threats made at Jewish Community Centers across the country last month are under investigation by the Justice Department and FBI.
• Texas is siding with the Trump regime over wanting immediate reinstatement of a Muslim immigration ban from seven countries.
• Activists across the country are protesting the Muslim ban with "A Day Without Immigrants", walkout actions from schools, places of business and more are expected nationwide.
• Malaysian police have now arrested three suspects in connection with the apparent murder of the exiled half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un on Monday.
• The newest entry into the Mars colonization race is the UAE's "Mars 2117" project, as Dubai believes humanity can colonize the red planet in a "more realistic timeline" of a century hence.