Month: June 2019

Ike was a sucker

by digby

That’s what Trump would say, anyway. In his mind, you never take the blame for anything that goes wrong and always seize the credit for everything that goes right. Only a sucker takes responsibility for failure.

General Dwight Eisenhower’s handwritten note before D-Day saying that if the landings fail, the "blame or fault…is mine alone”—75 years ago this week: pic.twitter.com/XBdYPJyBTT— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) June 2, 2019

A real hero would proclaim victory before it even begins and then whine and snivel like a three-year-old, blaming everyone but himself, if it goes wrong.

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Loving Kim Jon Un means never having to say he’s sorry

by digby

WALLACE: All right. I want to squeeze two more things in. President Trump talks about his close relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong- un. Here’s just one example. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

TRUMP: We go back and forth, and then we fell in love, OK?
(LAUGHTER) 

No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters. And they’re great letters. We fell in love.
(END VIDEO CLIP) 

WALLACE: But there are now reports that after the failed Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi that you attended, that Kim had some of the key members of his negotiating team for that failed summit, some of them were executed and others were sent to prison camps.
First of all, from the intelligence you have, is that true? And secondly, given all of that, does the president still feel he’s in love with Chairman Kim? 

MULVANEY: First thing’s first. I don’t believe we’ve confirmed that yet and I’m not going to speak about classified information that we may or may not have on that issue here. So let’s just assume for sake of this discussion that those reports are true. There’s still — having a relationship with a person — and you heard the president’s language and for those of us who know the president, and we do, that’s — that’s his manner, that’s how he speaks.

And to have a good working relationship with somebody, with anybody, how is that ever a bad thing? How is having the ability to pick up the phone or write a letter, as the president referenced, and talk to another world leader, regardless of what they might be doing domestically or internationally, how is that a bad thing? We think that it helps the dialogue going forward. 

WALLACE: Even if he’s – even is he’s a brutal dictator? Even if he kills members of his regime, let alone the people in his country? 

MULVANEY: Chris, what’s the central issue right now of North Korea? Why are we engaged North Korea? Because we’re concerned about them having nuclear weapons. We do not want that to happen.

We do not want people who might even be accused of doing what Kim Jong-un is accused of doing to have nuclear weapons. That’s why the president is doing this. Keep in mind, it’s going slower than we expected but foreign policy is not about short-term political gains, it’s about global and national US security. That’s how we’re addressing this. 

Having a good working relationship with somebody is never a bad thing.

They have the nuclear weapons. And it’s clear they aren’t going to give them up for some golf course and beachfront condo deals cooked up by Trump. That’s Trump’s pitch. That’s all he’s got.

That’s nice. But Trump doesn’t seem to have the same approach to other perceived enemies, like Castro or Maduro. Or allies, which he treats like utter shit just to show his twisted base that he’s a tough guy. His relationship to these favored strongmen is entirely dependent on whether or not they are telling him to his face what he wants to hear and feting him with a lot of pomp and public flattery. There’s no sort or long term strategy or even a solid belief system. It’s just who has kissed his ass or, in the case of Putin, intimidated him in some way.

He listens to no one and nothing but his own lizard brain that signals his pleasure and fear center. There’s nothing more to it than that.

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QOTD: Alan Lichtman

by digby

Alan Lichtman, who says that if the congress does not impeach the president he will win re-election, said this on MSNBC today:

Impeachment shouldn’t be based on political expediency. But here there is no rift. It’s right morally and constitutionally and it’s right politically. Democrats are falling into the same trap they fell into in 2016. Following the polls and the conventional wisdom and believing they can cruise to victory with a “not to lose strategy.”

Mitch McConnell saying “hey I blocked Merrick Garland but I’ll pass the Republican nominee” proves that we know about the two parties today. We have a Republican Party with no principles but a spine and a Democratic party with principles but so far, no spine. They can still grow a spine.

I don’t have an educated opinion about his “model” although he has called the last nine elections so you can’t just dismiss him. But his observation about Democrats fighting the last war by refusing to fight strikes me as correct regardless.

Here’s where he makes the argument that the Democrats need to impeach to overcome some of Trump’s structural advantages in spite of his unpopularity.

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The public starts to move on impeachment

by

CNN poll

Democrats are increasingly in support of impeaching President Donald Trump and removing him from office but the majority of Americans remain opposed to the prospect, a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS shows.

Trump’s approval rating, meanwhile, holds exactly even with where it was in late April — 43% approve and 52% disapprove of the President, according to the poll. That’s the case even as support for impeachment rose slightly from 37% last month to 41% now.
Similarly, those backing impeachment hit 43% in December, down from CNN’s previous high mark of this question with 47% in September 2018. The new poll finds 54% are against impeachment.

The shift on impeachment stems mostly from a rebound in support for it among Democrats — 76% favor it currently, up from 69% in April. Whites who hold college degrees have also increased their support for impeachment. In surveys in April and March, fewer than 3 in 10 in that group favored proceedings, but that number has now climbed to 41%.

CNN’s poll has trump’s approval a little bit higher than most of the others. (538’s average has him at 41.5) But the movement on impeachment is significant. And it’s not because the facts have changed. Its because more and more Democratic leaders are standing up. Leadership matters.

Also, the Democratic party should probably pay a little bit more attention to their own base on this. 76% of Democrats favor impeachment! And a whole bunch of college-educated white people, many of whom used to vote Republican, are also on board. This is not a static opinion.

I don’t know if the leadership has some grand plan to wait for support to rise before they impeach. But Pelosi insists that she wants to know in advance that the Senate would convict, which means she doesn’t care if 100% of Democrats and Independents back impeachment, Republicans must be there too. Maybe she’ll change her mind. I hope so.

Here’s a little reminder of how this unfolded in Watergate:

The televised Watergate hearings that began in May 1973, chaired by Senator Samuel Ervin, commanded a large national audience — 71% told Gallup they watched the hearings live. And as many as 21% reported watching 10 hours or more of the Ervin proceedings. Not too surprisingly, Nixon’s popularity took a severe hit. His ratings fell as low as 31%, in Gallup’s early August survey.

The public had changed its view of the scandal. A 53% majority came to the view that Watergate was a serious matter, not just politics, up from 31% who believed that before the hearings. Indeed, an overwhelming percentage of the public (71%) had come to see Nixon as culpable in the wrongdoing, at least to some extent. About four-in-ten (37%) thought he found out about the bugging and tried to cover it up; 29% went further in saying that he knew about the bugging beforehand, but did not plan it; and 8% went all the way, saying he planned it from beginning to end. Only 15% of Americans thought that the president had no prior knowledge and spoke up as soon as he learned of it.

Yet, despite the increasingly negative views of Nixon at that time, most Americans continued to reject the notion that Nixon should leave office, according to Gallup. Just 26% thought he should be impeached and forced to resign, while 61% did not.

A lot of key scandal events were to follow that year and into 1974, but public opinion about Watergate was slow to change further, despite the high drama of what was taking place. For example, October 1973 was a crucial month as the courts ruled that the president had to turn over his taped conversations to special prosecutor Archibald Cox, and subsequently Nixon ordered for the dismissal of Cox in what came to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre. The public reacted, but in a measured way. In November, Gallup showed the percentage of Americans thinking that the president should leave office jumping from 19% in June to 38%, but still, 51% did not support impeachment and an end to Nixon’s presidency.

In the spring of 1974, despite the indictment of top former White House aides, and Nixon’s release of what were seen as “heavily edited” transcripts of tapes of his aides plotting to get White House enemies, the public was still divided over what to do about the president. For example, by June, 44% in the Gallup Poll thought he should be removed from office, while 41% disagreed.

Only in early August, following the House Judiciary Committee’s recommendation in July that Nixon be impeached and the Supreme Court’s decision that he surrender his audio tapes, did a clear majority – 57% – come to the view that the president should be removed from office.

Yes, I know this isn’t Watergate. It’s worse. Trump is a monumentally corrupt, criminal ignoramus who had no business ever even coming close to being the leader of the powerful nation on earth and wouldn’t have except for the total collapse of the Republican Party. He welcomed Russian government help to win election and has cozied up to every strongman on the planet while blowing up the entire world order, particularly the relationship with our closest allies, because he’s too fucking stupid to understand foreign relations and trade policy. Nixon was malevolent and psychologically damaged, but he wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t a traitor.

As I said, I don’t know if Pelosi and company have a grand plan. But if they believe what they are saying, which is that you can’t impeach Trump because Republicans won’t convict him, then I think they are playing with fire.

Trump may survive impeachment through the partisan solidarity of Republican Senators who are happy to show themselves to be shameless toadies to their 40% president. He will say he “”won.” But if they fail to impeach him in the House, he will run by saying that it was Democrats who exonerated him. After all, if they really thought he was guilty they would have done it, right?

Trump will run as the strongman who all alone defeated the Democratic House with his gigantic bare hands.

I don’t think this is a decision that should be made on political terms. But if it is, it seems to me that the Democrats have the political argument all wrong. They actually have a better chance of winning in the long run by forcing the Republican Senate toadies to save him.

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Rudy and Jeanine, the right’s latest comedy team

by digby

Dark comedy. Very dark. C&L rolls the tape:

Following her latest unhinged rant accusing Robert Mueller of “colluding with the Democrats,” being a never-Trumper and supposedly doing his best to push them to impeach Trump during his press conference last week, Fox’s “judge” Jeanine Pirro brought on Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and asked him to weigh in on her commentary.

Rudy continued the pile-on of Mueller, and completely ignored the fact that the Mueller investigation actually made a profit for the federal government after Manafort was forced to forfeit over $46 million to the feds when he told Pirro that he should file a lawsuit against Mueller to for $17 million in order to “get that money back for the government.” Trump propagandist Pirro, of course, didn’t mention the money confiscated from Manafort:

President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, jokes about serving special counsel Robert Mueller with a $17 million lawsuit following Mueller’s failure to come to a conclusion on obstruction of justice charges against Trump.

Giuliani was interviewed on Fox News’ Justice with Judge Jeanine on Saturday, telling the network host that he should sue Mueller to “get that money back for the government.”

The segment began with Jeanine Pirro asking the former New York City mayor about statements from Attorney General William Barr where he said he and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein did not understand why Mueller did not come to a conclusion on charging Trump.

“We first heard that the special counsel’s decision not to decide the obstruction issue at meet–at the March 5th meeting when he came over to the department, and we were, frankly, surprised that–that they were not going to reach a decision on obstruction,” Barr said during a May 1 Senate hearing. “We asked them a lot about the reasoning behind this and the basis for this. Special Counsel Mueller stated three times to us in that meeting, in response to our questioning, that he emphatically was not saying that but for the [Office of Legal Counsel’s] opinion he would have found obstruction. He said that in the future the facts of the case against the president might be such that a special counsel would recommend abandoning the OLC opinion, but this is not such a case. We did not understand exactly why the special counsel was not reaching a decision. And when we pressed him on it, he said that his team was still formulating the explanation.”

Pirro asked Giuliani if he understood Barr’s meaning of “not understanding” Mueller.

“I think I do,” Giuliani said. “Mueller has said a bunch of different things, but if you look at the report it says very clearly that he could not conclude that the president committed obstruction of justice but then he goes on to say ‘but I can’t exonerate him.’ So he actually did make kind of a decision, which is ‘I can’t decide whether he committed obstruction of justice.’ He wrote that.”

Giuliani went on to say that prosecutors decide if there is enough evidence to charge someone with a crime and, if not, the person is exonerated.

“We don’t go ahead and write you a clean bill of health and say there’s no possibility you did it, I never remember ever doing that,” Giuliani said, prompting Pirro to agree.

Pirro then asked about Mueller’s conclusion and why Mueller failed to make a decision.

“It was a dereliction of duty,” Giuliani replied. “Why do you appoint an independent counsel, a special counsel? Theoretically you appoint them because there’s some kind of conflict, and they are supposed to make a decision.”

“So he made a decision about collusion, he couldn’t make a decision about obstruction. I think he should return half the money,” he continued, referencing the estimated $31 to $35 million spent on the almost two-year-long investigation. “If he did that for a private company….if someone appointed me a private investigator and said ‘well, you’ve got to come to two conclusions’ and I investigate and I come to one, but I say ‘gee, I can’t figure out the second one’ and they pay me $35 million, I think I have to probably give them about $17 million back.”

“I think I might bring a qui tam action to get that money back for the government,” Giuliani added as Pirro laughed at the suggestion.

They are both completely off their rockers. But that’s the sort of lunacy the Trump cult hears every single day. It’s also what their Dear Leader hears as well.

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You wanna trade with the US? Well, we own you if you do.

by digby

It’s hard to believe an American Ambassador would say this but in the Trump era, it’s completely normal:

US Ambassador to the UK Woody Johnson tells #Marr that the whole of the economy, including the #NHS, will be “on the table” in a future US-UK trade deal after Brexit https://t.co/OakG0Gu6Ro pic.twitter.com/BlYJ9GKcuJ— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) June 2, 2019

Why the NHS would necessarily be on the table is unclear but apparently, we now feel free to dictate the domestic affairs of any country that trades with us.

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How do you solve a problem like The Donald?
by Tom Sullivan

Sky News had a bit of fun publicizing Donald Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom that begins Monday:

How seriously does the rest of the world take Trump? Well, here’s how Sky News is advertising his UK state visit. Watch. pic.twitter.com/wEa0EedoxJ— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) June 1, 2019

London mayor Sadiq Khan does not think Trump is a joke. In a blistering editorial, Khan blasts the American president’s visit.

Praising white supremacists, threatening to veto banning rape in warfare, separating migrant children from parents, deploying “xenophobia, racism and ‘otherness’” to win votes, and a Muslim travel ban. Added to Trump lying like sailors reputedly swear, these are the actions of dictators from the 1930s and 40s, Khan writes:

Donald Trump is just one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat. The far right is on the rise around the world, threatening our hard-won rights and freedoms and the values that have defined our liberal, democratic societies for more than seventy years. Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Matteo Salvini in Italy, Marine Le Pen in France and Nigel Farage here in the UK are using the same divisive tropes of the fascists of the 20th century to garner support, but are using new sinister methods to deliver their message. And they are gaining ground and winning power and influence in places that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

They are intentionally pitting their own citizens against one another, regardless of the horrific impact in our communities. They are picking on minority groups and the marginalised to manufacture an enemy – and encouraging others to do the same. And they are constructing lies to stoke up fear and to attack the fundamental pillars of a healthy democracy – equality under the law, the freedom of the press and an independent justice system. Trump is seen as a figurehead of this global far-right movement. Through his words and actions, he has given comfort to far-right political leaders, and it’s no coincidence that his former campaign manager, Steve Bannon, has been touring the world, spreading hateful views and bolstering the far right wherever he goes.

When Khan mentions him in the same breath as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, Trump is probably flattered.

Khan urges outgoing prime minister Theresa May to publicly declare Trump’s views “incompatible with British values.” Trump’s behavior refutes everything the U.S.A. purportedly stands for, Khan laments, and values for which the two allies fought for decades to defend. Yet, on the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion launched to quash fascism’s march across 20th century Europe, England is preparing a red-carpet welcome for a 21st century American fascist.

Khan’s frustration with his government is palpable on this side of the Atlantic among Democrats with theirs. As support builds among House Democrats for opening a formal impeachment inquiry, Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems determined to slow-walk the effort either until public support exists for it or until congressional campaign season makes launching it impractical for Democrats trying to hold onto their seats.

So, MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch on Friday offered some branding advice Democrats likely won’t heed, “You take the word ‘impeachment’ and you change it to ‘criminal activity.'”

Robert Mueller presented 10 different ways in which Trump clearly obstructed Justice, Deutsch says. Trump is already an unindicted co-conspirator in the New York campaign finance case. Democrats are pursuing Trump’s taxes to look for foreign influence, money laundering, and tax evasion.

Democrats need to initiate ongoing, “Trump criminal investigations,” Deutsch suggests. “Trump. Criminal.” Brand him. “You make Trump say, ‘I’m not a criminal,'” Deutsch argues. Drop “impeachment.” It’s a loser.

Deutsch might be onto something. Pelosi argues it’s the investigations that count (for building public support), not what we call them. Others seem to want the emotional satisfaction of attaching “impeachment” to Donald Trump. (He certainly gets emotional about it.)

But this administration led by a wannabe crime boss has stepped over the line into open defiance of the law. Insisting the “additional authorities” of a formal impeachment inquiry will produce compliance is to believe Trump will buckle to a double-dog dare. I have argued it is ludicrous to believe norms that would bring another president to heel have little power here. If Democrats open an impeachment inquiry, they need no other rationale than Trump is already in open defiance of the law. Period.

That is Deutsch’s point. This is a dog fight. Conventional tactics do not apply. As the LA Times’ Virginia Heffernan suggested Saturday, before he can be indicted in the House, Trump has to be convicted in the court of public opinion. With video, perhaps.

But Democrats are rank amateurs playing against professional smear merchants. They need to hire professionals. And not their friends from Beltway consultancies, either. Brand him. Make his administration, his name, and Trump Organization properties even more toxic than they are now. Make his ratings suffer.

Saturday Night at the Movies

SIFF-ting through cinema: Week 3

By Dennis Hartley

The Seattle International Film Festival has entered its final week, so I’m continuing to share film reviews. SIFF is showing 410 films over 25 days. Navigating such an event is no easy task, even for a dedicated buff (ow, my ass). Yet, I trudge on (cue the world’s tiniest violin). Hopefully, some of these films will be coming soon to a theater near you…

The Realm (Spain/France) – In this conspiracy thriller, a low-level Spanish politician becomes an unwitting fall guy for the systemized corruption in his district. He decides to blow the whistle on his backstabbing colleagues before he is forced to resign his post. It’s a good premise and has a promising start, but the narrative becomes more and more preposterous, to the point of self-parody. I sensed the film makers were aiming for Three Days of the Condor…but unfortunately what they ended up with was this 2-hour turkey.

Rating: *½ (Plays June 2, 7, & 8)

Kifaru (Kenya/USA) – I haven’t cried like this over an animal movie since I saw Old Yeller as a kid. But there’s a palpable sadness running throughout David Hambridge’s extraordinarily moving documentary about the life and death of “Sudan”, the last male white rhino. The film is as much about his dedicated caretakers James and JoJo, workers at Kenya’s Ol Pejeta wildlife conservancy. Thankfully, we are given hope for the future (thanks to the miracles of modern science).

Rating: ***½ (Plays June 3)

I Am Cuba (Cuba/Soviet Union) – There is a tendency to dismiss this 1964 film about the Cuban revolution as Communist propaganda. Granted, it was produced with the full blessing of Castro’s regime, who partnered with the Soviet government to provide the funding for director Mikhail Kalatozov’s sprawling epic. Despite the dubious backers, the director was given a surprising amount of creative freedom.

On the surface, Kalatozov’s film is in point of fact a propagandist polemic; the narrative is divided into a quartet of rhetoric-infused vignettes about exploited workers, dirt-poor farmers, student activists, and rebel guerrilla fighters.

However it is also happens to be a visually intoxicating masterpiece that, despite accolades from critics over the decades, remains relatively obscure. The real stars of the film are the director and his technical crew, who will leave you pondering how they produced some of those jaw-dropping set pieces and logic-defying tracking shots!

Rating: **** (Special revival presentation; Plays June 4 only)

Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground (USA/France/Israel) – Just when I thought I knew everything about the Warhol Factory scene, this fascinating documentary introduces an overlooked player. Barbara Rubin was a Zelig-like character who moved to NYC at 18, became enmeshed with some of the era’s most culturally significant artists…then became one herself as a pioneering feminist filmmaker. And many years before Madonna dabbled in Kabbalah culture, Rubin embraced it full-bore, taking the traditionally patriarchal Orthodox Jewish community head on while re-inventing herself.

Rating: *** (Plays June 5)

Go Back to China (China/Hong Kong/USA) – Writer-director Emily Ting’s family dramedy/fish-out-of-water story concerns a young woman (Anna Akana) living high off her trust fund in L.A. who gets cut off by her prosperous dad in China. If she wants back on the gravy train, he demands she must first come back to China for a year to work at his toy factory. Not groundbreaking-but all-in-all it’s an amiable, audience-pleasing charmer.

Rating: *** (Plays June 5 & 6)

International Falls (USA) – Steve Martin once said, “Comedy is not pretty.” He was being facetious; but there is a dark side to the business of funny (everybody loves a clown, but nobody wants to take one home-if you know what I’m saying). Punchline meets Fargo in this tragicomic love story directed by Amber McGinnis and written by playwright/comedian Thomas Ward.

A disenchanted, middle-aged Minnesota mom (Rachael Harris) with a crap job and crappier marriage finds her only solace in attending weekly comedy shows at a local hotel lounge and toying with the idea of one day going into stand-up herself. One night, she hooks up with a cynical road comic (Rob Huebel) who seems to have lost his, how do you Americans say…joie da vivre? The pair realize they might have something special going on between them. Problem is, she’s married, and he’s just there for the week. Funny and sobering, with fine performances by Harris and Huebel (both real-life comics).

Rating: *** (Plays June 6 & 7)

Driveways (USA) – There is beauty in simplicity. Korean-American director Andrew Ahn and screenwriters Hannah Bo and Paul Thureen have fashioned a beautiful, elegantly constructed drama from a simple (and oft-used) setup.

A single Korean-American mom (Hong Chau) and her 8-year old son (Lucas Jaye) move into her recently deceased sister’s house, ostensibly to clean it out and sell it. To her dismay, she discovers her estranged sis was a classic hoarder and it looks like they will be there longer than she anticipated. In the interim, her shy son strikes up a friendship with their next-door neighbor (Brian Dennehy), a kindly widower and Korean War vet.

That’s it. I know…sounds like “a show about nothing”, but it’s about everything-from racism to ageism and beyond. Humanistic and insightful; never preachy. Wonderful performances all around, but the perennially underrated Dennehy is a particular standout.

Rating: **** (Plays June 7 & 8)

Halston (USA) – Fashion…turn to the left! Beep-beep. If I had to name my two “least favorite” subjects, they’d be: sports, and fashion. I usually have to be dragged kicking and screaming into films dealing with either. However, it’s my duty as a critic to cover all the bases (how I’ve suffered for you people…and fashion). Nonetheless, I found this portrait of the enigmatic gentleman who designed Jackie K’s first pillbox hat to be fascinating and engrossing.

Rating: *** (Plays June 7 & 9)

Here Comes Hell (United Kingdom) – Jack McHenry’s feature film debut is an homage to classic black-and-white “haunted mansion” thrillers, mixed with contemporary gore film sensibilities. A bit reminiscent of Ken Russell’s Gothic (although not quite in the same league), the story takes place over the course of one eventful and unsettling evening. A group of people converge at an isolated country estate and accidentally open the door to Hell (I hate it when that happens!). There’s a fair amount of mordant humor, and the special effects are pretty good for a low-budget production, but it’s all rather rote.

Rating: **½ (North American Premiere; Plays June 7 & 9)

Previous posts with related themes:
2019 SIFF Preview

More reviews at Den of Cinema
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— Dennis Hartley

QOTD: A proud war criminal

by digby

I was an artillery officer, and we fired hundreds of rounds into Fallujah, killed probably hundreds of civilians. Probably killed women and children if there were any left in the city when we invaded. So, do I get judged too? — corrupt congressman Duncan Hunter

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, said he probably killed “hundreds of civilians” while serving as an artillery officer in Fallujah.

His comments were made public Monday on the latest episode of the podcast “Zero Blog Thirty.”

“I was an artillery officer, and we fired hundreds of rounds into Fallujah, killed probably hundreds of civilians,” he said. “Probably killed women and children if there were any left in the city when we invaded. So, do I get judged too?”

Hunter recalled this story in response to a question about the actions of Navy SEAL Edward R. Gallagher who is on trial in San Diego accused of war crimes including shooting at civilians. Gallagher has pleaded not guilty.

During the podcast, Hunter was asked specifically about one of the individuals Gallagher is accused of killing, a teenage ISIS fighter. According to prosecutors, the SEAL stabbed the teen who was brought in for medical treatment.

“I frankly don’t care if he was killed,” Hunter said. “I just don’t care.”

The Congressman added that he has seen photos and videos from the Gallagher case and has talked to other SEALS who served with him who say they don’t believe the charges. Hunter also said Gallagher should be given a break and that the ISIS fighter he is accused of killing was going to die anyway.

Right. You can pretty much do whatever you want, torture, maim, kill, because all humans are going to die anyway.

Oh, by the way, Hunter is “pro-life.”

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The nasty princess

by digby

Fake News CNN is at it again, falsely claiming President Trump called Meghan Markle “nasty.” Here is what he actually said. Listen for yourself! pic.twitter.com/kLuPXBLMhf

— Official Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) June 1, 2019