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The Slow-Motion Coup d’Etat picks up steam

The Slow-Motion Coup d’Etat picks up steam

Leak of full transcripts of presidential conversations with foreign leaders a milestone in effort to paralyze the Trump administration.

Since the election there has been an unprecedented attempt to unwind the election result. Events have accelerated on several fronts lately with attempts from outside and within to paralyze the Trump administration.

What started as a collective media freakout on Election Night 2016 quickly progressed to an unprecedented attempt to intimidate Electors into changing their votes. Some Democrats announced, even before Trump took office, plans to impeach him, and Democrat politicians fed media-driven Russia collusion conspiracy theories for which they knew there was no evidence.

Chuck Schumer, for example, used the alleged fact of Donald Trump being under FBI investigation as an argument against confirming Neal Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, even though Schumer (but not the public) knew from intelligence briefings that Trump was not personally under investigation.

All the while, the permanent bureaucracy, particularly in the intelligence community, started an unending and almost daily series of leaks meant to paralyze the administration.

Then FBI Director James Comey refused to tell the public what he privately told Trump on three occasions, that Trump personally was not under investigation, thereby aiding and abetting this false media attack on the administration. Comey then himself leaked non-public government information, after his termination, to manufacture an excuse to have a Special Counsel appointed. That Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, turns out to be a good friend of Comey, and is building a massive prosecutorial infrastructure in the attempt to find a crime.

At the same time, there has been unprecedented obstruction of Trump’s ability to staff his administration. Even non-controversial nominees are slow-walked by Democrats. Vast swaths of the federal bureaucracy remain under the sway of Obama holdovers and those who consider Trump illegitimate.

The purpose in all this has been to freeze and paralyze the Trump administration. If Trump could not be prevented from taking office, and cannot be physically removed from office, he will be prevented from functioning as president.

Trump, because of his own personal and administrative volatility, unpredictability and inconsistency, was a vulnerable target for such an effort.

The effort to paralyze the administration was advanced significantly today with the release by The Washington Post of leaked full transcripts of Trump’s conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia soon after he took office. There had been leaks about those conversations previously, but never the full transcripts.

The leak is being celebrated and the transcripts quoted (often out of context) for the purpose of scoring political points against Trump. But more than that, this represents yet another dangerous example of how leaks have been weaponized to try to paralyze the Trump administration.

David Frum, a harsh critic of Trump, writes at The Atlantic, Why Leaking Transcripts of Trump’s Calls Is So Dangerous

Leaking the transcript of a presidential call to a foreign leader is unprecedented, shocking, and dangerous. It is vitally important that a president be able to speak confidentially—and perhaps even more important that foreign leaders understand that they can reply in confidence.

Thursday’s leak to The Washington Post of President Trump’s calls with the president of Mexico and the prime minister of Australia will reverberate around the world. No leader will again speak candidly on the phone to Washington, D.C.—at least for the duration of this presidency, and perhaps for longer. If these calls can be leaked, any call can be leaked—and no leader dare say anything to the president of the United States that he or she would not wish to read in the news at home.

The collective attempt to paralyze the Trump administration has been termed a slow-motion coup d’etat. And it is picking up steam. I discussed these developments today on the Tony Katz show:

Well again, I don’t level what level of classification – if any – these had. This may just be leaking something that was not an illegality itself, but I think there’s a bigger problem, which is that the attempt to subvert the administration from within the administration is continuing unabated. And it really is unprecedented. It’s an attempt to essentially have a coup to overthrow the election results, not by a new election, but by completely subverting the existing government.

I first addressed this concept of a coup on December 12, 2016, about the attempt to undermine the Electoral College, The one thing you must understand about the unfolding media-Democrat Electoral College coup attempt:

We are witnessing nothing short of an attempt to steal the election by some Democrats and a very supportive mainstream and leftwing media, by causing Electors in the Electoral College to go rogue and vote for Hillary, or at least not vote for Trump.

That concept of a silent of slow-motion coup would be picked up as the effort against Trump accelerated, as I wrote on May 18, 2017, Some dare call the anti-Trump feeding frenzy a “coup” attempt.

Among those speaking of such a coup was the normally reserved Victor Davis Hanson:

https://youtu.be/troOweIGTGQ?t=4m5s

James Downton at The Federalist wrote, We Are Watching A Slow-Motion Coup D’etat

It’s nearly incontrovertible that a slow-motion coup d’etat is now taking place. Since November 9, 2016, forces within the U.S. government, media, and partisan opposition have aligned to overthrow the Electoral College winner, Donald Trump.

To achieve this they have undermined the institutions of the Fourth Estate, the bureaucratic apparatus of the U.S. government, and the very nature of a contentious yet affable two-party political system. Unlike the coup d’etat that sees a military or popular figure lead a minority resistance or majority force into power over the legitimate government, this coup d’etat is leaderless and exposes some of the deepest fissures in our system of government. This coup d’etat represents not the rule of one man or even many, but by the multitude of our elites.

This coup mentality is expressed in a desire of Trump opponents to have the permanent bureaucracy, not the elected President, run the executive branch. John Hinderaker at Power Line writes of how The Administrative State Declares Independence:

Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, an Obama holdover, recently authored one of the most pernicious columns within memory in the New York Times. Her column was titled, “Protect the Justice Department From President Trump.” Yates argued, in essence, that there exists an Executive Branch that is independent of, and superior to, the President–at least as long as that Executive Branch is staffed pretty much exclusively by Democrats. This is, of course, a boldly unconstitutional theory….

Yates argues for a permanent bureaucracy in Washington that is impervious to the wishes of the voters, who may occasionally be so imprudent as to elect a Republican president. In Yates’s view, that must not be an obstacle to the liberal policies of the Justice Department or, by analogy, any of the dozens of other federal agencies that are manned nearly exclusively by liberal Democrats….

The administrative state is by far the greatest contemporary threat to the liberty of Americans. The appalling Sally Yates urges that the Constitution be left in the dust, and that unelected bureaucrats be elevated above the president whom they ostensibly serve. It is hard to imagine a theory more at odds with our Constitution or our political traditions.

The administrative state is also asserting its dominance at the National Security Council through a purge of Trump loyalists by H.R. McMaster, reports Adam Kredo at the Washington Free Beacon, McMaster, On ‘Warpath,’ Purges Key Trump Allies From White House NSC:

An ongoing staffing purge being conducted by White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has thrown the West Wing into chaos, according to more than half a dozen Trump administration insiders who told the Washington Free Beacon that McMaster has been targeting long-time Trump loyalists who were clashing with career government staffers and holdovers from the Obama administration.

The purge is part of a larger drama unfolding inside the administration, between veteran Trump staffers committed to the president’s campaign vision of “draining the swamp”‘ in Washington and entrenched bureaucracies seeking to maintain control over policy decision-making, according to these sources, who said that many of these actions against his supporters are being conducted without Trump’s knowledge.

The Trump staffers fired by McMaster had repeatedly clashed with career government staffers and holdovers from the Obama administration on issues as diverse as military strategies for Syria and Afghanistan, whether to tear up Obama’s landmark Iran deal, the controversial détente with Cuba, the U.S. role in confronting Islamic radicalism, and the Paris Climate Accord, according to these sources.

More purges are said to be on the way, according to multiple insiders who described a list of at least four other senior NSC officials McMaster intends to target. Other sources confirmed the likelihood of more purges, but disputed some details on that list.

“McMaster basically has this list and over the next two weeks he’s going to phase out” more senior officials loyal to Trump, said one administration insider intimately familiar with the upheaval occurring at the White House National Security Council. “They’re taking out people who were chosen to best implement the president’s policy that he articulated during the campaign.”

The latest victim of this purge is Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a senior NSC official originally hired by ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The White House acknowledged in a statement late Wednesday evening on Cohen-Watnick’s departure that McMaster viewed him as in conflict with his vision for the NSC….

According to Kredo, the administrative apparatus being assembled is designed to eviscerate Trump policy positions, particularly on the Iran nuclear deal:

One of the central flashpoints in this internal battle has been Iran and the future of the nuclear accord, multiple sources independently confirmed to the Free Beacon.

NSC officials such as Cohen-Watnick, Harvey, and others had been making the case that Trump should scrap the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear deal over increasingly aggressive Iranian ballistic missile activity and mounting evidence Tehran is breaching the accord. McMaster, as well as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and top Obama-era State Department officials who worked on the deal, have aggressively urged maintaining it.

“That’s why they took him out,” explained one source, referring to Harvey, who is said to have constructed a comprehensive plan on how to scrap the nuclear deal.

Another source described the Trump administration’s Iran policy as “completely gutted” in the aftermath of these firings.

Caroline Glick writes on Facebook of the threat this assemblage presents to promised Trump policy on Israel

The Israel angle on McMaster’s purge of Trump loyalists from the National Security Council is that all of these people are pro-Israel and oppose the Iran nuclear deal, positions that Trump holds…

McMaster disagrees and actively undermines Trump’s agenda on just about every salient issue on his agenda. He fires all of Trump’s loyalists and replaces them with Trump’s opponents, like Kris Bauman, an Israel hater and Hamas supporter who McMaster hired to work on the Israel-Palestinian desk. He allows anti-Israel, pro-Muslim Brotherhood, pro-Iran Obama people like Robert Malley to walk around the NSC and tell people what to do and think. He has left Ben (reporters know nothing about foreign policy and I lied to sell them the Iran deal) Rhodes’ and Valerie Jarrett’s people in place.

And he not only is remaining at his desk. He is given the freedom to fire Trump’s most loyal foreign policy advisers from the National Security Council….

If McMaster isn’t fired after all that he has done and all that he will do, we’re all going to have to reconsider Trump’s foreign policy. Because if after everything he has done, and everything that he will certainly do to undermine Trump’s stated foreign policy agenda, it will no longer be possible to believe that exiting the nuclear deal or supporting the US alliance with Israel and standing with US allies against US foes — not to mention draining Washington’s cesspool – are Trump’s policies. How can they be when Trump stands with a man who opposes all of them and proves his opposition by among other things, firing Trump’s advisers who share Trump’s agenda?

Sara Carter at Circa reports how Susan Rice has received special treatment, A letter from H.R. McMaster said Susan Rice will keep her top-secret security clearance.

While The Atlantic reports how the national security purge has taken down a Trump loyalist who wanted to expose the Obama administration’s conduct towards the Muslim Brotherhood.

Eli Lake at Bloomberg notes how leakers forced the President’s hand on Russia sanctions:

One senior Senate staffer who worked on the legislation told me this week that there was no doubt that the lurking questions around the Trump campaign and Russia spurred Republicans in particular to support a bill with no waiver.

It’s possible that nothing will come from the special counsel’s investigation or the various committees in Congress looking into the matter, but “it’s better to be safe than sorry,” this staffer said.

And while this is good for U.S. foreign policy, it sets a dangerous precedent. U.S. intelligence agencies are not supposed to interfere in our politics. But they clearly have. They have not only succeeded in creating the conditions under which Trump fired Flynn. Leaks forced Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself on Trump-Russia investigations. They also spurred acting attorney general to appoint a special counsel, Robert Mueller, to run the probe.

Now intelligence leaks have contributed to the atmosphere that led Congress to force Trump to effectively violate one of his campaign promises to seek a new relationship with Moscow, not to mention a new precedent for Congress to abrogate the executive branch’s foreign-policy dominance.

Not only is the Trump administration under unprecedented attack from outside, the foxes are inside the henhouse, and are gutting it from the inside out.

The attempt to unwind the 2016 election through paralyzing the Trump administration is a serious threat to our liberty. Our most basic of institutions, the transfer of power through elections, is under attack.

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Comments

How can the American people stop this?

    YellowSnake in reply to sdharms. | August 3, 2017 at 4:50 pm

    The American people are stopping it.

    I was taught that the system our founders built was designed to slow things done so that reason might prevail.

    Rick in reply to sdharms. | August 3, 2017 at 4:59 pm

    Sessions should appoint a very able and very openly Trump supporter as special prosecutor to investigate the leaks.
    He also should appoint a similar Trump supporter to investigate the multiple sins of the Obama administration.
    We need our President to fight back.

      Close The Fed in reply to Rick. | August 3, 2017 at 10:40 pm

      I disagree that Sessions should appoint a special prosecutor to investigate leaks.

      He has the power and DUTY to do so. No special prosecutor needed. Nor to investigate the previous administration.

      Trump and Sessions underestimated how virulent the left would be after the election. Now they know. Now is time to go after Clinton and not let up. Just enforce the law.

    iconotastic in reply to sdharms. | August 3, 2017 at 6:47 pm

    It seems to me that stopping this is really up to the Administration. Find the leakers and charge them. Set agents and prosecutors on leaky operations, like Mueller’s witchhunters, and crucify them for leaking. Tap reporter phones and emails to discover who is leaking as well.

    After all, this is war. Only the winners get to write the history.

      Denan Jones in reply to iconotastic. | August 4, 2017 at 1:13 pm

      I agree, the leakers must be found, prosecuted and imprisoned for a long, long time.

      But the leakers are merely weapons in the war. They are under the control of the leaders and lieutenants of the Anti-America forces. Ending the war means dealing with the Leaders of the Establishment.

    m0r0 in reply to sdharms. | August 4, 2017 at 4:21 pm

    Article 5, convention of the states is the last resort.

This must be stopped at all costs. If Mueller is not stopped we will have complete chaos.

    Matt_SE in reply to Roux. | August 3, 2017 at 5:52 pm

    The purpose of Mueller announcing the empanelment of a grand jury (which is of itself a non-event) is to give the impression that he’s on the verge of indicting someone.
    This means that he can’t be fired because the other side will scream about obstruction of a nonsensical investigation.

    Trump should’ve fired his ass a month ago, before he got dug in. Now, he’s going to pay for his lack of vision.

      artichoke in reply to Matt_SE. | August 4, 2017 at 10:48 am

      There was never a time when Trump could have easily fired Mueller. Not one moment. This is like the Palestinian strategy at the Temple Mount. When is there a moment when that situation can be improved? There has not been a single such moment since the 1930’s.

      If Sessions can un-recuse, he should do so.

      Maybe they thought they would fix it by recess appointments. The Senate just killed that, and it requires a unanimous Senate to do that. Not one single senator stood up for Trump.

      But there are some things Trump can do, that he is not. He could fire McMaster and bring back the pro-Israel people. Remember how a lot of Trump loyalists never got permanent jobs in the administration — the guy in charge of that hiring just never got to them, and they expired.

      It is starting to look intentional from Trump, and I hold him accountable. He’s not really so much for his loyalists and for Israel as he says. McMaster is there with his approval, fighting against Israel.

        Artichoke… I wouldn’t be so quick to say the President is on board with this stuff. I mean, his freakin’ plate is so full of stuff right now, it strains credibility to think that he is down in the weeds on monitoring staff hirings ,etc. He puts people in position and relies on them. Once it comes to his attention that they are failing him or their mission, then they get attention. With all that is going on the last 4 months… I just can’t see the President being able to dig down to these levels to ensure compliance. He is being poorly served and distracted … and that is on purpose. TO get folks like you to start to hold him accountable for not producing. See?

          artichoke in reply to RobM. | August 4, 2017 at 6:24 pm

          Well it’s not like I am dropping my support or going to vote for a competitor in 2020. But a guy he meets with several times a week isn’t “down in the weeds”.

          I am worried about Kelly. He’s telling people to schedule appointments through him, and report all contacts with Capitol Hill to Marc Short. Isn’t Marc Short the guy Scaramucci fired first as a leaker? Now he’ll get to know the substance of all communications with the Hill.

          Trump has to fall out of love with his generals. They can be slimy bastards while looking so great in uniform and standing straight and having military bearing. Slimy as hell.

          artichoke in reply to RobM. | August 4, 2017 at 6:27 pm

          I just checked and the guy Scaramucci fired was Michael Short. This is Marc Short. Hopefully they are different and completely unrelated, or at least not allies.

        Milhouse in reply to artichoke. | August 4, 2017 at 12:55 pm

        This is like the Palestinian strategy at the Temple Mount. When is there a moment when that situation can be improved? There has not been a single such moment since the 1930’s.

        There was a perfect moment: June 1967. The Arabs had been thoroughly defeated, Motta Gur had declared “The Temple Mount is in our hands”, the Israeli flag was flying over it, and the whole world expected it to stay there. Nobody was more surprised than the Arabs when Moshe Dayan summoned the waqf and gave it back to them, and had the flag taken down. Nobody forced him to do that.

        Nor did anyone force him to chase down the fleeing Arabs of Hevron (who were sure that if they stayed they’d be made to pay for their roles in the 1929 massacre), persuade them to return, and give them control of the Double Cave.

        These were deliberate attempts to forestall the restoration of true Jewish (as opposed to “Israeli”) sovereignty. Dayan was afraid Israel would become “too Jewish” and he valued the opinion of the Western Islamophiles more than he did his own people.

          artichoke in reply to Milhouse. | August 4, 2017 at 6:21 pm

          Thanks for the information. I didn’t realize that.

          The actions of both sides have been confusing enough that it’s taken me a good part of my life to come to what I think is a fair understanding of the real issues there. So much disinformation.

We need to step up our game, bigtime. I’m really not sure what can be done, this is a very sad day for our country, I truly believe that.

A person very close to me and a democrat partisan somehow finds all the rumors, innuendos and leaks to take down Trump as highly amusing. Her hatred of Trump, for which I can never find any rationale for other than what she repeats from the San Francisco Chronicle, blinds her to the consequences of these actions. I ask her as an attorney do you really want to live in a country where election results are not respected, where the rule of law no longer applies, and a single party in cahoots with the press tells you what not to know but what what to think? If so, then you will live under the dictatorship you so accuse Trump as being.

    YellowSnake in reply to MadisonS. | August 3, 2017 at 5:03 pm

    I think it stared long before he ran for President. But it was cemented when he rode done his faux gold escalator and declared Mexicans to be rapists. It continues every day that he lies and lies and lies. I am not talking about normal politician lies. I am talking about baldfaced, transparent lies that he often contradicts. It irritates because he is the most narcissistic president in my lifetime and I go back to Eisenhower.

    It is done shamelessly because this is exactly what you guys did to Obama and Clinton. You took Benghazi and tried to make it the biggest scandal ever; in the face of an Iraq War that was an abomination and killed, not 4, but hundreds of thousands.

      Can you imagine what it would have been like if Hillary had had half the things going on that Trump does? Jared selling green-cards. Trump dictating misleading statements about Don Jr’s meetings with Russians.

      Everyone “forgetting” everything they did with a hostile state? And Trump lying his ass off every time he’s on TV. Hillary told some whoppers–but man–lying about the freakin’ Boy Scouts? What the heck??

        You trolls are coming out like roaches. And are half as attractive. You must have gotten your marching order emails this morning to coordinate with mueller’s b.s. announcement. (You should post a copy.)

        “Can you imagine what it would have been like if Hillary had had half the things going on that Trump does?..” Yes, we can. She committed treason by selling influence to foreign governments while secretary of inebriation.

        “Omnivore,” huh. More like intellectual Herbivore, often outsmarted by plants. You must be very skinny, indeed.

      Are you really so stupid that you don’t understand the difference between “some illegal aliens are rapists” and “all Mexicans are rapists?”

      Are you really that much of a fucking moron that you don’t understand the difference between a legal military action with Congressional approval and a covert operation where personnel were abandoned on the field of battle in order to preserve a bullshit campaign narrative? Are you really that much of a fucking moron?

        Paul, you are answering your own questions.

        It’s hard to imagine people in a cult who are truly ignorant of facts around them, but come off like someone knowing what’s going on – more than everyone else does.

        These people will be selling flowers on street corners pretty soon – while dancing and singing ‘hari krishna.’

        They need to be left behind.

      ” You took Benghazi and tried to make it the biggest scandal…”

      YellowTail, Hillary Clinton did that all by herself.

        And we STILL have no idea what Obama was up to that evening!

          lateblum in reply to Helen. | August 4, 2017 at 11:18 am

          We still have no idea what Obama was doing that night or any other time before, during or after his election. Unless he was golfing. And even then, I’m not certain we know anything. The “most transparent” president . Humbug.

      Old0311 in reply to YellowSnake. | August 6, 2017 at 10:43 am

      Chelsea, don’t you need to check on the baby?

    nraendowment in reply to MadisonS. | August 4, 2017 at 10:37 am

    Her answer: “sure, as long as we win.”

How can McMaster allow Susan Rice to keep her security clearance? Clearances are suspended all the time for actions a tiny fraction of what Rice did in unmasking her opposition party staff members.

It would have been a trivial action to suspend her clearance pending investigation. When you have a clearance, and you refuse to answer legit questions about your actions with said clearance, you don’t get to keep it. Ever.

    tom swift in reply to georgfelis. | August 3, 2017 at 4:56 pm

    Back in my day, we didn’t keep security clearances when we weren’t on secure projects. If someone like Rice has no government function right now, she shouldn’t have any kind of clearance. That’s pretty much what a clearance is all about—it’s clearance to deal with information which is not to be slathered around to every Tom, Dick and Harry who has no legit need to know it.

    Her possible criminal abuse of such information is not a consideration. Criminal or not, she shouldn’t have special access to it, period.

      snopercod in reply to tom swift. | August 3, 2017 at 5:43 pm

      It seems like it would be a simple matter to set up a document control system of some kind. Before any original document was disseminated, one could change a word here or there or add some punctuation which would be different in every copy, so that if the text ended up in the NYT, the leaker would be immediately identified.

      nraendowment in reply to tom swift. | August 4, 2017 at 10:47 am

      Rice has no need-to-know. Period.

    Matt_SE in reply to georgfelis. | August 3, 2017 at 5:54 pm

    How can anyone do anything? They will do whatever they want to until someone else stops them. Not complains about it, not writes a letter to the editor, STOPS THEM.

      nraendowment in reply to Matt_SE. | August 4, 2017 at 10:50 am

      It’s going to take arrests, prosecutions and maximum penalties to regain control of this disaster. No plea bargains, ever.

    It’s turning out that McMaster is a comey.

    He’s got to go.

“Trump, because of his own personal and administrative volatility, unpredictability and inconsistency” & mendacity is the sole & total cause of his ineffectiveness. Whatever Schumer knew, Trump is under investigation. The reason is embedded in his character or lack thereof.

As to the ‘slow coup’. That was exactly what was being planned for Clinton before the election even took place! Some were advocating a much faster coup. On 8/9/16, Trump talked about ‘2nd Amendment remedies’.

Please don’t whine too much. He won’t accomplish anything that requires work – like tax reform (a 1 pager). But you are getting what you want. You got a Supreme Court Justice under other than Marquess of Queensbury rules. He is dismantling everything Obama did. He will attempt to disenfranchise as many of those who disagree with you as he can manage. You can pull his stings to implement as much of your ‘moral’ agenda as you can manage.

I guarantee that he will be in office for his full term unless even people like you get sick of him and recognize him for the grifter he is. But you are absolutely right that those who don’t like him and your agenda will fight. We learned from the Right starting with the claim that Obama was not born in the USA. Moving on to claims that Obama was a Muslim and a traitor. Continuing with claims that he didn’t love America and was a saboteur. Don’t you recognize your own handiwork?

Why hysteria? The same thing was done to Obama. Hillary Clinton’s approval rating was driven down from 65% at the time she resigned from Secretary of State to 40% by election day. Live by the sword. Die by the sword.

    Milhouse in reply to YellowSnake. | August 3, 2017 at 5:59 pm

    There are so many lies in that one that I have neither the time nor the patience to pick them apart one by one. So I’ll just point out that you’re a damned liar, unworthy of being taken seriously.

    sjf_control in reply to YellowSnake. | August 3, 2017 at 6:10 pm

    “We learned from the Right starting with the claim that Obama was not born in the USA”

    You do realize (but ignore) the fact that that originated from Hillary’s camp.

    YellowTail, how are things over there in North Korea?

    NaSa76 in reply to YellowSnake. | August 4, 2017 at 9:08 am

    Obama was a treacherous sack of Sh***t for having Bill Ayers as his political mentor. No questions about that.

    McCain was a loser who didnt dare to speak the truth about Obama when he ran against him. Trump would have called out Obama for his phony baloney calls for unity when his own religious mentor was a low life race hustler.. just like all the low life characters who “adorn” Chicago.

    Trump is what you get and deserve to get when you pretend Obama and Hillary to be decent people.

    The GOP gave America a chance at a decent person being President again in Mitt Romney. You blew your chance. You now have a President who makes you LONG for GW Bush and Mitt Romney !!

    Sucks to be a DUMBOCRAT, doesnt it

    Mr Trump, give them HELL !

    “He is dismantling everything Obama did.”

    And I thank God every day that Trump was elected to do exactly that. If Obama was so great, why couldn’t he get his stuff through Constitutional means? He was in fact the true ‘feckless’ one.

So … what is the evidence that these leaked transcripts are genuine? This is the era of “fake news”, so why not fake transcripts?

A fake transcript obtained from a “confidential source” (a.k.a. a highschool creative writing class) allows these traitors to plant evidence that the NeverTrumpers will lap up (“Gosh, look what Trump said, what a goof, huh?”) while whipping up hysteria about leaks which may not even exist (and leaks can also be blamed on Trumpian management).

For Democrats, Liberals, and the Totalitarian Axis at large, fake transcripts would be a win all around, and easily done.

    YellowSnake in reply to tom swift. | August 3, 2017 at 5:09 pm

    Because in time it will turn out to be genuine like most of what has surfaced about Trump. Much of it Trump ultimately confirmed either explicitly or implicitly.

    I understand that Trump aides and apologists are working overtime to stamp out the fires. But Trump starts them quicker than they can be extinguished. That is his style. Did you really know nothing about his past life?

      Valerie in reply to YellowSnake. | August 3, 2017 at 6:05 pm

      “Because in time it will turn out to be genuine like most of what has surfaced about Trump.”

      That’s exactly how the Democrats lost the election — by telling such over-the-top whoppers about Trump that people checked up, and detected the lies.

      Keep it up, and ruin what’s left of what once was a decent Party.

      NaSa76 in reply to YellowSnake. | August 4, 2017 at 8:59 am

      What exactly would you like to know about Trump’s past life ? love or hate him, he has been a public figure for the last 3 decades in NYC.

      What exactly did you do when you knew that Obama had a racist preacher for his entire adult life ? or that he got his political start by working with traitorous rat b***d like Bill Ayers ? Oh wait, you didnt really care when there actually was cause for concern did you ?

      Your fake indignation about Donald Trump is as fake as CNN and the rest of the Lsm is.

Jonny Scrum-half | August 3, 2017 at 5:21 pm

I’ve tried to find earlier posts on this site complaining about how leaks under Obama were somehow akin to a “coup d’etat,” or lamenting the Wikileaks releases of documents related to the Clinton campaign, but so far I’ve been unsuccessful. I’m sure that I’ve simply missed them – Mr. Jacobson certainly can’t be so intellectually and morally bankrupt as to have a double-standard for when leaks are okay, right?

“At the same time, there has been unprecedented obstruction of Trump’s ability to staff his administration. Even non-controversial nominees are slow-walked by Democrats. Vast swaths of the federal bureaucracy remain under the sway of Obama holdovers and those who consider Trump illegitimate.”

How do the Democrats have the power to “slow walk” nominations? They are the minority. The answer is clear: the GOP establishment is aiding them.

    Milhouse in reply to Matt_SE. | August 3, 2017 at 5:57 pm

    You’re an idiot. They have the power because the Senate rules guarantee them the right to debate every nomination. Changing those rules would be disastrous the next time they have the majority. They’re already regretting the one change they made; the last thing we want is to make an even more drastic change that we will later regret.

      Rick in reply to Milhouse. | August 3, 2017 at 6:40 pm

      And the Republican pussies, not just female, won’t change the rules to stop the obstruction.

        Milhouse in reply to Rick. | August 4, 2017 at 12:10 am

        As I just said, changing the rules would prove a disaster the next time the Dems control the senate. There’s no going back on such a change; once you make it it’s done, and when you’re in the minority you will bitterly regret your foolishness. Reid made one change, and the Dems now regret it. It would be the height of folly for the Reps to get rid of the right to debate. And no, the Dems will not get rid of it the next time they have the majority, for the same reason. The proof is that they didn’t do so when they had the majority.

          Rick in reply to Milhouse. | August 4, 2017 at 12:50 am

          Except that the dems will do it themselves when they are next in power, regardless of what the wimpy Republicans do while they technically have the majority.

          Milhouse in reply to Milhouse. | August 4, 2017 at 1:08 pm

          And you’re still an idiot. No, the Dems will not do it themselves when they’re next in the majority. The proof is that they didn’t do it when they had the majority. Go explain that, genius. The Reps were being a major pain to them, obstructing them at every turn, and yet they did nothing about it.

          The moment the Dems lost their 60th senator the Reps shut the 0bamacare debate down, and the Dems could no longer pass the amendments they wanted unless they could force it through reconciliation; in other words with 59 senators they were in the same bind that the GOP is in now. They could have solved it by ending the filibuster, but they chose not to. So where on earth could you have got the idea that next time they will do it?

      Harry Reid did just that.

      The GOPe’s b.s. ‘gentleman’s game is a cop-out.

      The filthy swine.

        You are lying. Reid did not change this rule, for the same reason that it would be foolish for McConnell to change it. And that is the best indication that next time they have the majority they won’t change it either.

        Reid made one and only one change, and the Dems are now bitterly repenting it.

        I get your anger and disgust and feel it myself, but it’s not clear that you understand what Reid did in terms of Senate rules changes . . . and what he didn’t do.

        I’m not happy at all with the GOP right now, but what you are saying, the reason for at least some of your anger, is not based in reality. What rules changes do you imagine Reid made that the GOP has abandoned?

      Matt_SE in reply to Milhouse. | August 4, 2017 at 1:10 am

      You’re a rube if you think Dems won’t change the rules, even without provocation. Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Reid was discussing eliminating the filibuster altogether BEFORE the election was over. Schumer agreed with him.

      The only reason they didn’t was because they lost.

        Matt, you may be conflating two different Reid moves. Schumer did support the nuclear option that allowed the ObamaCare monstrosity to pass (this was a change in budgetary procedure), but he was against curtailing filibuster rules. These are not the same things.

        I dislike Schumer greatly, but he was opposed to abolishing filibuster rules on the Supremes and on Cabinet members. I think he ended up voting for the latter, but if he did (I so should check, but don’t feel like it), he didn’t agree with the leadership position, he just voted to support leadership (in itself a weakness that cannot be forgiven).

        Lying about the lying liars doesn’t help anything.

          Milhouse in reply to Fuzzy Slippers. | August 4, 2017 at 1:26 pm

          Schumer did support the nuclear option that allowed the ObamaCare monstrosity to pass (this was a change in budgetary procedure),

          What nuclear option? 0bamacare passed the senate because the Dems had 60 senators. When Brown got elected the house was debating its version, with the intention of going to conference and working out the final version in the normal way. But with only 59 senators that became impossible, so the house passed the senate version intact, sent it to the president, and it became law.

          Then they tried amending it, but the GOP stood strong so they could only make those amendments that can go through reconciliation; in other words they were in the same bind the GOP is in now. That’s why it ended up such a mess that nobody liked it. They could have gone nuclear, abolished the filibuster, and passed all their amendments; they chose not to.

        Milhouse in reply to Matt_SE. | August 4, 2017 at 1:18 pm

        Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Reid was discussing eliminating the filibuster altogether BEFORE the election was over. Schumer agreed with him.

        No, he wasn’t, and no, he didn’t. You’re making this up. Reid and Schumer announced they’d complete the abolition of the confirmation filibuster, by eliminating the artificial exception of supreme court appointments, which nobody had ever expected to survive the first contact with reality; McConnell ended up doing that.

        Neither Reid nor Schumer ever suggested abolishing the legislative filibuster, or the 30-hour minimum debate time. Nor did they do so when they had a 59-seat majority and yet the Republicans were making their lives miserable with the filibuster. So how can you assert that they will certainly do so next chance they get, and that anyone who doubts it is a rube? What do you think stopped them last time, and what has changed since then?

18 U.S. Code § 2384 – Seditious conspiracy

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

    Milhouse in reply to snopercod. | August 3, 2017 at 5:58 pm

    The key word in every single one of those phrases is “by force”. Who’s doing that? Nobody.

      snopercod in reply to Milhouse. | August 3, 2017 at 8:35 pm

      That depends upon the meaning of “or”. For example, how can two people conspire by force?

        Milhouse in reply to snopercod. | August 4, 2017 at 12:17 am

        You’re an idiot. It doesn’t say conspire by force, it says conspire to “overthrow, put down, or to destroy” by force. Conspiring to do these things by lawful means is not illegal, and can’t be.

          Burn_the_Witch in reply to Milhouse. | August 4, 2017 at 8:57 am

          You really should refrain from calling people idiots just because you disagree. There’s more than one interpretation of that statute and a plain English interpretation doesn’t fully support you. Since you apparently need an explanation, the combination of the exclusionary “or” should suffice normally, but the placement of the preposition “by” cements the fact that “force” does not apply to all three elements.

          To address the deeper flaw in your silly “this is all legal” argument, Jacobson already pointed out the unconstitutional nature of much of these actions.

          Before acting like an ass, make sure you’re right.

          Milhouse in reply to Milhouse. | August 4, 2017 at 1:28 pm

          No, he didn’t. There’s nothing unconstitutional about frustrating the government by lawful means; that’s what we did to 0bama for eight years, and you were fine with it then.

      “conspire to overthrow” does not require ‘force.’

I think we have a record… at least three trolls on this thread right now. You hit a nerve.

Sessions’s recusal is not a legal act, it’s just a voluntary decision not to play a role in this matter; he can change his mind at any time. I think it’s time for him to take charge, on the grounds that things have got ridiculously out of hand and he can no longer stay aloof. Particularly since the investigation seems to no longer be focused on the campaign in which he participated. Then he should summon Mueller and demand a detailed explanation of his apparent shenanigans. If he can’t provide a satisfactory one, fire him on the spot and let the chips fall where they may.

If Congress passes this ridiculous “can’t fire Mueller” bill, Trump should veto it and tell Congress plainly that even if they override the veto he will not comply with it because it’s blatantly unconstitutional. And he should use that as his reason to fire Mueller immediately.

    RodFC in reply to Milhouse. | August 3, 2017 at 6:42 pm

    This is the first I’ve heard of such a bill. If Congress does pass this bill then not only should Trump veto it, but he should immediately fire Meuller.

    But that is about the only way that he should fire Meuller.

    He should however speak to Sessions about put bounds on Meullers budget.

We’re living in interesting times, aren’t we?

I’d bet the military would revolt if the likes of McMaster tried to seize power from us (Trump).

the great kazoo | August 3, 2017 at 6:22 pm

The swamprats are playing with fire if they think everything will go back to the way it was after deposing Trump.
They will lose the heartland, and probably start a civil war.

Trump is a test to see if we are still allowed to elect an outsider president, or if “our” elections are just kabuki theater.

From what I saw of the election, and the desperate attempt to overturn the results – there is definitely treason afoot.

If Trump can’t drain the renegade swamp, we’ll have no other choice but to intervene.

Those out to destroy Trump pretend not to know they destroy the country in the process. Even if he is not great, they are much worse.

Instalanche!

Fire Mueller. Fire McMaster. Fire every Obama hire.

And Sessions, time to unrecuse yourself, fire every prog in the DOJ, starting with your 2nd. Then get busy prosecuting the criminals in the government, starting with Clinton.

They want a war, give it to them.

These leaks of the president’s phone conversations with foreign leaders may prove a tipping point. The significant problem this poses for the United States both during and after Trump’s tenure in the White House cannot be ignored. Somewhere, George Soros is laughing.

My instinct is to fight back, find out who leaked those transcripts and have them tried, very publicly, for treason. But that won’t be the response here. The argument will be made–and will be hard to rebut–that for the good of our constitutional republic, Trump should resign.

    “My instinct is to fight back…”

    Honestly – given what’s going on – do you have any doubts about fighting back?

      Heh, I know they can’t actually be tried for treason. (Still giggling that someone thought they needed to explain that to me, but I should have been more clear about the point I was trying to make.) My point was that the damage is that severe. The leak of these transcripts is crippling to the executive branch in terms of foreign policy (all of it, including trade, immigration, fighting terrorism, and etc.). The president, and more importantly, his foreign peers/heads of state cannot speak to one another freely. This is enormously problematic, and it will reverberate into future presidencies, as well.

      If we can’t manage to secure our president’s conversations with foreign leaders, . . . well, it doesn’t look good. It’s not good.

      I’m furious about this leak, more than about anything else that is happening because this actually damages the office of the president and not just the man himself. Trump can survive the empty accusations and assorted tactics being deployed to undermine his own presidency, but transcripts of not one, but two, phone calls to foreign leaders were just published in the media for all the world to see. Who will speak freely with him now? Knowing that whatever they say may be blasted for the world to see? I can think of a lot of stupid world leaders, but none are that stupid. Why bother even speaking to Trump at all? Just hold a press conference and bypass the middleman.

    Close The Fed in reply to Fuzzy Slippers. | August 3, 2017 at 10:53 pm

    Treason is defined in the constitution Article III, Section 3:

    Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

    ” But that won’t be the response here. The argument will be made–and will be hard to rebut–that for the good of our constitutional republic, Trump should resign….”

    I’m amazed you even indulged the thinking of the left. Who cares what b.s. they argue?

    Close The Fed in reply to Fuzzy Slippers. | August 3, 2017 at 10:55 pm

    Re: Fuzzy Slippers:

    I do not see any difficulty in arguing that Trump should NOT resign. None.

Henry Hawkins | August 4, 2017 at 8:12 am

I would point out that every bit of this Trump opposition was foreseeable and foreseen by Trump throughout the 2016 campaign, in fact, Trump’s main campaign point was that he was the outsider who could defeat it, that if he were elected we’d get “tired of all the winning” as he “drained the swamp”.

Why won’t Trump fire McMasters, et al? He can, he hasn’t, and it appears he won’t. Why?

    Close The Fed in reply to Henry Hawkins. | August 4, 2017 at 9:23 am

    Re: Henry Hawkins:
    I wonder also why he hasn’t and evidently won’t fire McMaster. Very puzzling.

    My guess is the resistance in congress primarily. I suspect that there is much more going on behind the curtain that we do not even suspect.

    The Trump voters must repeal and replace the GOPe next year.

    I think that maybe McMasters has the support of Kelley and Mattis… and Trump thinks very highly of them. He may be in a spot.. fire McMasters… and maybe lose Mattis? Kelley just got the new gig, and may be in a position to mitigate issues with McMasters, but I’m guessing that is part of Trump’s problem. He needs these guys and yet, they may be sticking up for one of the old guard… to Trump’s detriment. Don’t know.

Speaking as someone who has held a security clearance since 1977, I am outraged (in the real sense of the word, not the Leftist one) that there are apparently so many people with clearances who should never have been entrusted with the responsibility of protecting classified information.

I would immediately report compromises if I knew of anyone disclosing classified information to people or organizations without the appropriate clearance and a need-to-know, and the people I work with feel the same way. We despise those people and are humiliated and embarrassed by their actions.

Can’t Trump end Mueller and all this BS by saying he pardons everyone involved for any potential crimes and himself?

    Milhouse in reply to lee enfield. | August 4, 2017 at 1:32 pm

    He could do that but he’d probably get impeached for it, and rightly so. There are better ways to cut this Gordian knot, such as firing Mueller and replacing him with a truly neutral person who is committed to stay within his terms of reference.

notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital | August 4, 2017 at 11:31 am

FYI

Any validity to this?

Republican Senate Blocks President Trump From Recess Appointments…

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/08/04/republican-senate-blocks-president-trump-from-recess-appointments/#more-136720

    Of course it’s valid. It’s exactly the same as they’ve been doing since 2010, to stop 0bama making phony recess appointments. The Supreme Court agreed that it’s obviously valid. Indeed the senate needs the house’s permission to do anything else.

The Fourth Amendment forbids open warrants. This was in reaction to Star Chamber inquisitions where investigator/prosecutors could go on what today are colloquially referred to as “witch hunts,” pursuing lines of inquiry in search of criminal behavior where there is no probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed. 

Isn’t this exactly what Mueller is pursuing against Trump. He is unconstitutionally attacking the president of the United States with a Star Chamber proceeding and in doing so is attacking the political rights of everyone who voted for Trump. Muller is trying to annul their/our votes. He is trying to block an election result, which is highest of high crimes in the history of the United States, right up there with John Wilkes Booth, who vitiated the votes of everyone who had voted for Abraham Lincoln. 

Mueller is attacking via legal proceedings instead of with a gun, but isn’t his attack just as illegal as Booth’s? Mueller and Rosenstein should both be prosecuted for establishing this unconstitutional Star Chamber investigation. They have tried to frame their witch hunt as legal by pretending that the target is Russian meddling in the 2016 election, not President Trump, but if Mueller’s latest leak is accurate this phony excuse is already proven to be a lie.

The Mueller leak is that he isn’t going to bother looking for Russian collusion because there is no there there, so he is going to focus instead on Trump’s financial dealings with Russia, looking for any undotted “i” his team might be able to prosecute. This is possible under the guidelines that Rosenstein created, which seem to grant Mueller the power to investigate anything that comes up in a Russian-collusion investigation, regardless of whether it provides probable cause of a crime having been committed. He can just keep pursuing whatever leads he finds about other things that can possibly be looked into. But this unlimited scope just proves that Rosenstein created an unconstitutional open warrant.

Is this correct? Surely the ban on open-warrant witch-hunts can’t be set aside when it is the primary representative of the will of the people who is being Star Chambered.

    lee enfield in reply to AlecRawls. | August 4, 2017 at 12:21 pm

    Trump should just throw out a blanket pardon and say “The witch hunt ends now.”

    lee enfield in reply to AlecRawls. | August 4, 2017 at 12:23 pm

    Anybody summoned to the grand jury should just give the one finger salute and mention their pardon.

      Do what the Obama folks did… waltz in there and say jack squat. Take the 5th. Screw ’em. It’s a witch hunt and they are aiming to catch underlings and Trumps’ kids in lies. Think Scooter Libby.

        lee enfield in reply to RobM. | August 4, 2017 at 1:00 pm

        Not even a lie but an inaccurate recalling of the facts. It’s nothing but downside to testify. 5thA the whole way.

Thank you for this, Professor Jacobson.

After all that you’ve so brilliantly recalled arranged and capsulated I am cheered for all is well.

This is what the destruction and reconstitution of a major political party that can no longer represent its voters looks like when you’re in it. You painted a very clear picture.

We never did expect them to go quietly into the night, not when their ideologic lives and careers depend on them staying.

I’ve said this elsewhere many times, but again, the Wikipedia page on the Whigs is excellent. Best thing I’ve read on the subject. It goes very far in comprehension of current events.

Trump is conservative voters dynamite, it’s C-4 explosive, intended to blow a hole through the Republican party. And he has. It worked. We’re seeing their reaction to conservative voter’s demands.

Professor: Rush was talking about your “slow motion coup” today. I didn’t catch all of it so I don’t know if he gave you the credit, but WE know where it came from. Way to go!

I think slow-motion and coup d’etat don’t go together. A successful coup d-etat is a quick strike where power transfers quickly and the victors have the power of government to hold off others. This slow-motion with no actual bi steps coup d’etat is going to fail because you can’t try and move and then pause for this to work. The fact we are all so aware of it makes it impossible also IMHO.

“The special counsel is subject to the rules and regulations of the Department of Justice and we don’t engage in fishing expeditions. Bob Mueller understands and I understand the specific scope of the investigation, and so no its not a fishing expedition,” Rosenstein told Fox News’ Chris Wallace.

Let’s take Rosenstein at his word and ask the obvious next question.
Are the Clinton donors on Mueller’s staff performing opposition research for the Democrats on the taxpayers’ dime ? If Trump runs in 2020 (and it seems like he will), are these Democrats using the power of the DOJ to look into Trump’s tax returns and other financial documents ?

If this “witch hunt” goes full measure and it is deemed unfair against Trump then the what the Greg Gutfeld Show’s video of the “Braveheart” Scottish rabble taking on the English elite, may become a actual deplorables against the progressive elites.
Instapundit stated it better than me, “Just remember, you’re setting the stage for a similar campaign of massive resistance to the next Democrat in the White House. And it may not be limited to the bureaucracy. I mean if this sort of thing is okay, why not refusal to pay taxes, or a Tea Party mob occupying the White House? And that’s just at the top of the slippery slope of “resistance”. At the bottom? Bureaucrats and politicians hanging from lampposts while their families try to evade the mobs. Is this really where you want to go, lefties? And if you think this is “special” because you think Trump is unfit for office, what about the majority of Americans who think the federal government operates without the consent of the governed? If bureaucrats are free to ignore the law, why should they listen to bureaucrats? Do you really want to live in a Kurt Schlichter novel (People’s Republic)?”