Woman hog-ties Trump in NYC billboard: Don Jr. Upset

video here

Mod: New York's Times Square is truly where fashion speaks. But that aside, didn't Stormy Daniels say Donald sorta likes this kind of thing?

Billboard shows Woman hog-ties Trump in Times Square NYC ad (NDTV link): An American clothing company has been drawing attention over a billboard -- put up at Times Square -- showing US President Donald Trump being hog-tied by a woman, reports said. According to reports, a Portland-based clothing company Dhvani placed the billboard as part of an advertising campaign.

The billboard features a female model, clad in an athletic wear, binding a look-alike of the US President with red, white and blue rope, and stomping on his face at the same time.

The billboard, according to reports, came up on October 15. The President's son -- Donald Trump Jr. -- slammed the media on Friday for not "giving time" to the issue.

"Since you had time to thoroughly cover a stupid and tasteless meme seen by 8 people with incredible outrage, I figured you should dedicate the same time and outrage to this billboard in the Times Square you hypocrites," he tweeted. Avi Brown, CEO of Dhvani, told a media outlet the billboard tried to take a pot shot at changes by the Trump administration to the Title X family planning programme that blocks federal funding for health care service providers that refer patients for abortions.

Brown asserted that his company was "on the right side of history", and further slammed Trump, saying the President has created a gag rule that one can't refer patients with reproductive information about issues like abortion and contraception.

He also accused the President of "gagging doctors and nurses" about what they can and can't tell the patients. Reports citing the clothing company said the the model who features in the billboard is Michal Mesa -- a Marine Corps veteran and school teacher.

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‘Everything is coming apart’: Ex-Trump officials panicked his presidency is in unstoppable collapse

Mod: Down in his swamp bunker Bonkers Benedict Bonespurs rants and raves endlessly, and in the most disturbing ways. People have been noticing.

‘Everything is coming apart’: Ex-Trump officials panicked his presidency is in unstoppable collapse (Raw Story link): On Saturday, Politico reported that former members of President Donald Trump’s administration see his presidency as mortally endangered and coming more unglued by the day — although they differ on whether Trump was always like this, or whether they simply have had a personal epiphany about the man they once worked for.

“It’s just looking like everything is coming apart,’ one former administration official told Politico. Another said it is a “pipe dream” to constrain Trump because “Everyone who has tried had eventually failed in some way.”

One of the key moments, for many of them, was White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney admitting, and then trying to walk back, that Trump indeed engaged in a quid pro quo in his attempts to get dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“The wheels are not off the car. The situation is way worse than that. The car has been impounded and we are now waiting to figure out what the fine is and to see whether or not we’re going to get the car back,” said Anthony Scaramucci, who served as Trump’s communications director for ten days before being fired in spectacular fashion. “Mulvaney is a good Catholic and in fairness to him, that was a full-blown Catholic confessional on Thursday afternoon.”

Trump veterans see a presidency veering off the rails (Politico link): Former Trump White House officials and other Republicans close to the White House are increasingly worried about President Trump’s erratic behavior and say there are no longer enough safeguards around him to prevent self-inflicted disasters large and small.

Just in the last two weeks, Trump precipitously withdrew U.S. troops from northern Syria and attacked America’s Kurdish allies as “no angels,” sparking outrage among GOP lawmakers; released a letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan whose undiplomatic language was widely mocked; called his former defense secretary “the world’s most overrated general”; and blew up at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a meeting his own White House had called.

Trump's behavior this week has been so bizarre that psychologists, Republicans and ex-staffers are telling me they're worried (The Independent link): Donald Trump is going through the motions of being President of the United States. He still lives resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he is still the head of the executive branch, and he's still the commander-in-chief of the world's most powerful military force. He can still give orders and be reasonably sure that they will be followed, like the order he gave to a small group of US soldiers 12 days ago, requiring them to abandon the Syrian Kurdish allies with whom they'd shed blood on the way to defeating Isis. Those soldiers, loyal American servicemen, will follow those orders, even though doing so made them — in the words of one soldier — “ashamed for the first time in my career.”

According to Pelosi, he "was not relating to the reality" that a supermajority of House members disagreed with him, to the point where she walked out of the meeting, joined by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Schumer explained how he'd reminded Trump of the dangerous conditions that could be created with the release of Isis fighters who'd been held by Kurdish forces, and noted that even retired Marine General James Mattis — Trump's former Secretary of Defense — had said that pulling out of Syria would enhance the terrorist group. According to a source who was in the meeting, Trump's response was to call Mattis "the world's most overrated general" and declare that he had personally "captured Isis in a month."

Another source, who spoke to CNN's Jamie Gangel, said that Trump's demeanor left even Republicans "completely shaken," "shell-shocked" and "sickened."

"He is not in control of himself, it is all yelling and screaming," the source said, adding that Trump was "100 per cent worse" and that even Republicans are now worried about his stability. As if to prove the anonymous source's point, Trump has spent the past two days claiming that he has brought peace to the region, rather than hand an unearned victory to Erdogan, Vladimir Putin, and Bashar al-Assad.

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Trump Rallies Are Jam-Packed With Political Sideshow Freaks

Mod: Somebody on the Democratic Underground site compiled a series of tweets depicting some of the bizarre sideshow freaks at yesterday's Trump rally in Texas. Here are a few of my favorites. To see the entire DU collection click here.

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Syria Surrender Monkey slapped: Pelosi tells Trump to his face ‘All your roads seem to lead to Putin’

Mod: Apparently Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered this message right to Trump's orange painted befuddled face yesterday. At which time Benedict Bonespurs pitched a colossal fit.

Pelosi says ‘all roads seem to lead to Putin’ (Associated Press link): House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says “all roads seem to lead to Putin” when it comes to President Donald Trump. The California Democrat told reporters Tuesday that nevertheless, she’s not going to call for a formal House vote on impeachment.

 Pelosi publicly humiliates Trump with brilliant move - video link here.

Trump has said that without a vote, the ongoing impeachment inquiry is “illegitimate.” But Pelosi says “we’re not here to call bluffs” and “this is not a game to us.” She adds that when it comes to Trump, “all roads seem to lead to” Russian Vladimir Putin.

Mod: It always goes back to what Putin has on Trump. Based on this latest example, Trump's capitulation in Syria, it has to be something big.

‘Vladimir Putin has something on Donald Trump’: Ambassador Sherman says the Kremlin must have kompromat (Raw Story link): Former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman concluded on Monday that Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin must have “something” on President Donald Trump.

“The latest reporting from The New York Times indicates that the thousands of troops that we have there, that the president moved, are now trapped. They don’t have an actual way out since Turkey has cut off the roads and the exit routes that they might use and so now there is the question of will there be an airlift? How will we get the U.S. troops out?” MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell asked.

“We haven’t had to get troops out like this since the fall of Saigon,” Sherman replied. “This is going to be very, very difficult. The president has basically handed the country back over to Assad, to Putin and to Iran and to ISIS.”

“I guess we’ll continue to be asking this question for a long time, but why does he want to do these things for Vladimir Putin?” O’Donnell asked. “This is the more than $64 million question. Maybe this is the $10 billion question — if that’s what Donald Trump is really worth — though I doubt it,” Sherman replied.

“Clearly he has business interests. Clearly Putin has something on Donald Trump,” she said.

“But the other thing — and I hate to say this — is Donald Trump really believes in strongmen. He belies that the president should have unbridled powers. His attorney general, William Barr, believes the president should have unbridled powers, she noted.“ So the president of the United States likes strongmen. He wants to be Vladimir Putin — and clearly Vladimir Putin has something on Donald Trump,” Sherman concluded.

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‘I can’t even look at the atrocities’: U.S. troops say Trump’s Syria withdrawal betrayed an ally

Mod: Nobody understands more clearly the consequences of Trump's betrayal of the Kurdish people than the Americans who fought in Syria. Their anger at his actions is loud and clear.

‘I can’t even look at the atrocities’: U.S. troops say Trump’s Syria withdrawal betrayed an ally (MSN.com link): Watching the rapid disintegration of security in Syria and the U.S. withdrawal, Marty Palmer recalled the night an Islamic State car bomb exploded near the Kurdish unit partnered with his Army Special Forces team.

The attack in the summer of 2017 killed about eight Kurdish fighters, Palmer said. U.S. soldiers spent much of the night patching up about a dozen survivors, who were then whisked away to a nearby Kurdish medical facility.

“I look at that event and it stands out to me as so representative of the sacrifice the Kurds made in the fight against ISIS,” Palmer said, using an acronym that describes the Islamic State. “It’s just one of many instances where they showed that type of bravery. The very next day, they were right back at it.”

Palmer, 32, is among several thousand U.S. troops and veterans who served in northern Syria and are witnessing the messy end of a years-long alliance with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

The U.S.-backed militia has been one of America’s closest partners in the war against the Islamic State since 2014, and some 11,000 Kurdish fighters have been killed in combat against the terrorist group. But with President Trump’s orders to withdraw all 1,000 U.S. troops from northern                                      in the face of a Turkish offensive, those who have served alongside Kurdish forces are left to consider America’s new place in the world.

“It feels like we’re abandoning our closest ally in the fight against ISIS, and we’re abandoning them to a fate that is going to end very poorly for them,” said Palmer, who left active duty last year. To 'completely abandon' a force that has “given thousands of lives for this conflict is really tough to watch.”

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, asked Monday about the service members' criticism on Syria, said he likes candor, but that soldiers must not be disobedient. “Everybody has an opinion in a war of ideas,” he said, speaking at a conference by the Association of the U.S. Army. “But ultimately, when national policy decisions are made, we salute and move out.”

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Benedict Bonespurs has delivered what Russia wants in Syria - at zero cost - and 'Putin likely can't believe his luck'

Mod: Seems obvious, right? But there are far too many low information folks who can't see beyond their eye lids. Putin gets Syria, while all we get are Trump family plastic action figures and snuff videos.

Trump has delivered what Russia wants in Syria — at zero cost — and 'Putin likely can't believe his luck' (Business Insider link): Syrian President Bashar Assad — backed by his Russian patrons — moved on Monday to exploit the collapse of the US military presence in northeastern Syria by driving troops into the previously autonomous region managed by a Kurdish-dominated militia that had been under American protection for five years.

The unlikely sequence of events began earlier this month after President Donald Trump ended US opposition to a Turkish offensive into Syria during a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The call ended the US mission to fight the terrorist group ISIS and reduce Iranian and Russian influence in war-shattered Syria. And it left Tehran, Moscow, and Damascus with a huge victory that required little more than watching the American presence disappear on its own.

Add caption

Russian President Vladimir "Putin likely can't believe his luck," said a Western military official from the anti-ISIS coalition who recently served in Syria. "A third of Syria was more or less free of ISIS, and its security was good without any involvement of the regime or Russia, and now because of the Turkish invasion and American pullout, this area is wide open to return to government control. "What was supposed to be a diplomatically complex issue that would have involved US and European military power suddenly got as simple as sending in tanks and units unopposed throughout the eastern third of Syria," said the official, who did not have permission to speak to the media.

Trump May Have Made Horrifying Syria Decision at Request of Putin (Buzzflash link): The carnage of the Kurds and the release of ISIS prisoners that Donald Trump has unleashed is being done in our name.

After all, the actions Trump has taken are in the name of the United States — and that is us. We are tarnished with his betrayal of an allied people, the resultant release of high-target ISIS terrorists, the bloodletting that is ongoing and the enabling of an increase in Russian influence in the region. Some might call it calculated treason. After all, the action sends a message to the nations of the world that the US cannot be a  trusted ally while also endangering lives across the planet and inflaming conflict in the Middle East with the re-activation of ISIS butchers.

Trump, as usual, has been all over the map in trying to explain a decision that profoundly undercuts US national interests and security.

He has implied that the Kurds were not worth protecting because they had not fought at “Normandy.” That made little sense because there was and is no Kurdish nation to have been an ally. Furthermore, many Kurds did fight as individuals with ally units. Of course, it goes without saying again that someone who never fought on "our side" in any military capacity is Donald “Bone Spurs” Trump, his nepotistic children, Donald Trump's father and basically his entire family.

Chickenhawks one and all, although his sons like to shoot captive game. What a bunch of craven and treasonous grifters.

Mod: As always there is much more available, and at all of the links.

Nancy Pelosi and Lindsey Graham join forces to ‘overturn Trump’s dangerous decision in Syria immediately’ (Raw Power link): This Monday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced that she and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have agreed to a “bipartisan, bicameral joint resolution to overturn the President’s dangerous decision in Syria immediately. “Pleased to have a conversation with Senator @LindseyGrahamSC this morning,” Pelosi tweeted. “Our first order of business was to agree that we must have a bipartisan, bicameral joint resolution to overturn the President’s dangerous decision in Syria immediately.”

In a series of tweets within an hour of Pelosi’s tweet, Graham confirmed the announcement, writing that he will be “working across party lines in a bicameral fashion to draft sanctions and move quickly, appreciating President Trump’s willingness to work with the Congress.”

“The Speaker indicated to me that time was of the essence,” Graham added. The announcement comes as a growing chorus of Republicans are joining Democrats in condemning Trump’s decision to withdraw a contingent of US troops from northeast Syria, green lighting Turkey’s invasion of the region.

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Kill your political rivals? Violent parody video shown at Trump resort

video is linked here

Mod: Church massacre humor? The Trump subculture can get pretty bizarre at times.

Violent parody video shown at Trump resort (Las Vegas Sun link): A graphically violent parody video, shown at a meeting of President Donald Trump's supporters at his Miami resort, depicted a likeness of the president shooting and stabbing his opponents and members of the news media in a church, The New York Times reported Sunday.

tweet with video is linked here

In the video, Trump's critics and media members are portrayed as parishioners fleeing his gruesome rampage. The fake Trump strikes the late Sen. John McCain in the neck, hits and stabs TV personality Rosie O'Donnell in the face, lights Sen. Bernie Sanders' head on fire and shoots or otherwise assaults people whose faces are replaced with news organization logos.

The video was shown last week at an American Priority conference at Trump's Doral Miami resort, the newspaper said. Trump was not there. Event organizer Alex Phillips told the Times the video was played as part of a "meme exhibit" and was not associated with or endorsed by the conference "in any official capacity." ''American Priority rejects all political violence," he said, and is looking into the matter.

The video includes the logo for Trump's 2020 campaign but Tim Murtaugh, spokesman for the re-election organization, told the Times the "video was not produced by the campaign, and we do not condone violence." The setting for the massacre is the "Church of Fake News," capturing Trump's familiar refrain about news stories and organizations that he considers to be fake news.

In the video, Trump's face is superimposed on a killer's body as he shoots people in the face and otherwise assaults them. Among the targets: former President Barack Obama, Black Lives Matter, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Rep. Adam Schiff, who as Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is leading the impeachment inquiry of Trump.

CNN, The Washington Post, BBC, PBS, NBC and Politico are among the news organizations depicted as victims of the fake Trump's violent fury. The White House declined immediate comment.

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Trump mocked Bernie Sanders for having a heart attack before pretending to care

video is linked here.

Mod: Dark Donny strikes again. Who would ever want this asshole's karma? And no, he is nothing like Jesus.

Trump mocked Bernie Sanders for getting a heart attack before pretending to care (Source Politics link): President Donald Trump is known for attacking anyone and everyone in politics, that's for sure. But now he may have taken things a bit too far. Shortly after criticizing Elizabeth Warren for being the "fake Pocahontas" and outlining bogus facts on why he thinks Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden are corrupt, Trump shifted his attention over to Bernie Sanders.

Satan is boring.

Here is what he said: "Looks like Bernie lost his chance right. Bernie was hitting a baseball today to show how strong he was." You could hear the crowd laughing at this joke.

He went on: "It just wasn't a lot of hand speed."

Trump knows it's politically a bad move to make fun of anyone for getting a heart attack, though, so this is the part of his speech where he decides to tell Bernie to "get better." He just had to make sure he mocked him first.

"That's the only time I've ever said anything good about him."

Trump then went on to tell his rally goers that this means Bernie will likely not be a serious contender in the race for much longer, most likely swinging his votes to Elizabeth Warren.

While Bernie Sanders heart attack certainly does raise those serious questions, none of Bernie's democratic challengers have tried to use his health concerns as a talking point. Trump is the only one.

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Trump says his border wall is 'impenetrable.' It took climbers in Kentucky mere seconds

View video here.

Mod: These guys are pretty good, but if it was me I'd have used a ladder.

Trump says his border wall is 'impenetrable.' It took climbers in Kentucky mere seconds ( Louisville Courier Journal link): In Eastern Kentucky's Red River Gorge area, an 18-foot replica of President Donald Trump's border wall is being scaled not only by experienced mountain climbers, but by novices and young children. One climber even scaled it while juggling.

"You don't tell a climber that something can't be climbed or that it's impossible," said Rick Weber, the 75-year-old mountain climber who built the replica. "That's just a challenge."

Weber, a retired engineer from Indianapolis, decided to build the wall after hearing Trump claim in September that a new section of the wall along the boundary with Mexico is "virtually impenetrable" and "can't be climbed" because, the president said, 20 mountain climbers struggled to climb a prototype.

So a skeptical Weber built his 18-foot wooden replica of the steel border wall at Muir Valley, a nonprofit nature preserve and rock-climbing park he founded along with his wife. The height matches portions of the border wall built by private contractors.

And since the wall has gone up, lots of people have successfully scaled it. Erik Kloeker, a 29-year-old climbing guide and property manager of Muir Valley,  went over the replica in about 30 seconds in a demonstration for The Courier Journal.

On follow-up attempts, he even juggled multiple items while climbing the wall. "The border wall that they're building could be climbed pretty easily," said Kloeker, who has been climbing for nine years.

Last week, Weber put up a Facebook post saying that a girl who had just turned 8 years old had "top roped" the wall. Weber, who plans to hold a competition to see how fast it takes people to climb the wall this weekend, said the replica took a few days to build and cost a few thousand dollars.

Trump tweeted in January that his wall would be finished in two years, but some experts said it could take as many as 11. Trump also said during his presidential campaign that the wall would cost $12 billion, though some have claimed it may have a price tag of roughly $60 billion.

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Fox News Poll: Record support for Trump impeachment

Mod: His remaining supporters have just got to learn to deal with it. Most people hate Trump and want him impeached. All the tweet whining in the world won't change that.

Fox News Poll: Record support for Trump impeachment (Fox News link): Just over half of voters want President Trump impeached and removed from office, according to a Fox News Poll released Wednesday.

A new high of 51 percent wants Trump impeached and removed from office, another 4 percent want him impeached but not removed, and 40 percent oppose impeachment altogether. In July, 42 percent favored impeachment and removal, while 5 percent said impeach but don’t remove him, and 45 percent opposed impeachment.

Since July, support for impeachment increased among voters of all stripes: up 11 points among Democrats, 5 points among Republicans and 3 among independents. Support also went up among some of Trump’s key constituencies, including white evangelical Christians (+5 points), white men without a college degree (+8), and rural whites (+10).

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Matt Drudge, an influential figure in conservative media, sours on Trump as he faces impeachment

Mod: Even Matt Drudge is turning on Traitor Trump? It looks like that is the case. You just never know where patriotism is going to show up next.

Matt Drudge, an influential figure in conservative media, sours on Trump as he faces impeachment (CNN Business link): President Donald Trump, facing an ever-deepening scandal that threatens to swallow his presidency, appears to have lost a key ally in conservative media: The Drudge Report.

The narrative-setting news aggregation website, founded in 1995 by Matt Drudge, has spotlighted an overwhelming amount of negative news for the Trump White House in the last several weeks. It's marked a major shift from how the outlet had previously covered the President.

"He's reacting to changing circumstances," a person close to the media mogul, who said Drudge had grown exasperated with Trump, told CNN Business. This should worry Trump as he faces an impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives for pushing Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, the leading Democratic presidential contender, and Biden's son Hunter.

Not only is Drudge's website aggressively covering the impeachment news, it is doing so by featuring commentary from some of the president's fiercest critics or the harshest criticism of him.

For instance, on Friday the top link on the Drudge Report, colored in red, was a link to Fox News judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano calling Trump's behavior "criminal and impeachable." Other links Drudge featured that day included Fox host Shepard Smith suggesting Trump may have violated the law on live television and "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd saying the current scandal is a "national nightmare."

Mod: There is much more at the link.

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