2016 PRE- ELECTION EVALUATION OF DONALD TRUMP.

Before the November, 2016 election, I PUBLISHED AN ARTICLE WITH THE TITLE:  

MESSAGE TO ALL PROGRESSIVES: DON'T YOU SEE IT, EVEN NOW? 

THIS ARTICLE HAD 8 PARTS, AND FOCUSED ON DONALD TRUMPS CANDIDACY, AND SPECULATED ABOUT THE TYPE OF PRESIDENT HE WOULD BE.

HERE ARE A FEW EXCERPTS TO COMPARE AND CONTRAST ABOUT WHAT WE KNEW THEN,
AND WHAT WE KNOW NOW.   


FROM PART 1.
With him, it has never been a matter of Intellect, Emotional Stability, or even a Coherent Political Platform.
The people who got Trump to where he is now, understand that getting him elected counts on the following...
...That Offensive Speech, along with a Lack of Knowledge, means very little if your Supporters
could care less, as long as it serves Their Political Agenda.

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FROM  PART 4.

The most amazing thing about Donald Trump claiming the Presidential Election is Rigged, is not that it is completely unexpected, but that anyone who really studies the problem couldn't see it coming.

It is a Strategy that fits in perfectly with those who already support him, for it requires none of the following:

-  An understanding of the Rules of Logic.

-  The Ability to separate Gossip, Rumor, and Innuendo
    from Factual Data.

-  The Understanding that you do not start any Investigation,
    be it Science, Law, Politics.,etc with a CONCLUSION, and
    then try to Shape the Evidence to Support it. BAD EVIDENCE
    DOES NOT CHANGE THE TRUTH, NO MATTER
    WHAT YOUR AGENDA IS.

  -  The REALIZATION THAT  BASELESS ASSERTIONS ARE
      MEANINGLESS, NO MATTER HOW OFTEN YOU REPEAT
      THEM.

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FROM PART 5.

So what Type of Voter would find someone like this appealing? Could it be the Type of Voter who sees the Writing on the Wall, with a set of beliefs and attitudes that no longer wields the Political Influence they once did?

Beliefs and Attitudes such as;

-  Religious Intolerance.

-  Patriarchal Rule.
-  Racial and Ethnic Divisions
   enforced by law.

Among others...

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FROM PART 6.

Let us make a short list that could explain the rise of Donald Trump.
#1- The Affordable Care Act has allowed Millions of Americans access to Health Care.     
       However, on a case by case basis, there may be those who have fallen through the
       cracks, and have suffered economic distress because of the Law.
       The President and Progressive Democrats suggest altering parts of the ACA to provide
       relief for such cases.
      
       The Republicans- Repeal the Law.

#2-  Immigration.
       The President and Progressive Democrats propose:
       To Provide Assistance, and an Opportunity, for Refugees and Immigrants to Live and
       Work in the U.S. This includes Extensive Background Checks, Waiting Period,
       Possible Sponsorship, and Obtaining Legal Employment for Tax Purposes.

       The Republicans- GET OUT, AND STAY OUT.
       ONLY CHRISTIANS FROM SPECIFIC COUNTRIES NEED APPLY.   

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FROM PART 7.
TAX BREAK INCENTIVES, WHICH ALLOWS THE RICHEST AMERICANS

TO RETAIN MORE OF THEIR WEALTH, WITH THE HOPE THAT THEY WILL

 PUMP THAT MONEY BACK INTO THE ECONOMY.

TO RECEIVE THIS INCENTIVE, ARE THEY

REQUIRED TO:

-  INVEST IN SPECIFIC INDUSTRIES THAT ARE STRUGGLING?- NO.

-  FINANCIALLY SUPPORT CORPORATIONS WHO PROVIDE A LIVING

   WAGE, OR A MEDICAL PLAN FOR THEIR EMPLOYEES?- NO.

-  ONLY SUPPORT AMERICAN BUSINESSES, INSTEAD OF TAKING THE

    FINANCIAL WINDFALL OVERSEAS?-  NO.

THESE TAX BREAKS ARE BASED ON THE "HOPE" THAT THEY WILL BE USED

TO BENEFIT THE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE.

However, don't worry. If these incentives are used unwisely, and the MONEY DISAPPEARS,

ALL IS NOT LOST. CORPORATIONS FORMED ARE PLACED INTO BANKRUPTCY,

MEANING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE FOOTING THE BILL FOR POOR MONEY

MANAGEMENT.  WHAT ABOUT THE WEALTHY INDIVIDUALS WHO RECEIVED THE

TAX BREAK BENEFITS, AND LOST THE MONEY? THEY WILL JUST DECLARE THESE

LOSSES ON THEIR INDIVIDUAL TAX RETURNS, AND BASICALLY GET IT ALL BACK.

THE REPUBLICANS- WHO ARE THEY FIGHTING FOR AGAIN?

REMEMBER THIS? TWO TRIALS, TWO DIFFERENT RESULTS. GOOD FOR YOU MICHIGAN, TRUMPIANS LOSE THIS ROUND. (2 ARTICLES.)

 

Friday, April 8, 2022

ANOTHER JOKE VERDICT, FROM ANOTHER JOKE JURY. FASCISTS IN MICHIGAN REJOICE.

DO PROSECUTORS EVEN LOOK FOR PROSPECTIVE JURORS WHO HAVE BASIC REASONING SKILLS, OR DO THEY JUST CHOOSE FROM THE  DONALD TRUMP FAN BASE?

HERE IS ONE PARAGRAPH FROM THE STORY, SEE IF YOU CAN SPOT THE CONTRADICTION:

Defense attorneys contended that the FBI and its informants directed the alleged planning and, while denying their clients took part in the plot, said they were nonetheless entrapped.*

2 men acquitted in the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer; jury deadlocks on other 2

https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2022/04/2-men-acquitted-in-alleged-plot-to-kidnap-michigan-gov-gretchen-whitmer-jury-deadlocks-on-other-2.html

HERE IS SOMETHING TO HELP THEM CELEBRATE, ALONG WITH THE DEFENDANTS.

MONDAY, AUGUST, 22, 2022

AP NEWS

2 men convicted in plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Whitmer

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI and ED WHITE

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A jury on Tuesday convicted two men of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, delivering swift verdicts in a plot that was broken up by the FBI and described as a rallying cry for a U.S. civil war by anti-government extremists.

The result was a big victory for the U.S. Justice Department. A different jury just four months ago couldn’t reach unanimous decisions on Adam Fox or Barry Croft Jr. but acquitted two other men, a stunning conclusion that led to a second trial.

Their arrests nearly two years ago came at an extremely tense time: the volatile homestretch of the election between Joe Biden and then-President Donald Trump playing out against a backdrop of armed protests over COVID-19 restrictions, especially in Michigan.

Jury selection in the retrial of Fox and Croft coincidentally occurred a day after FBI agents searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate for documents, putting the agency in headlines at the same time that the judge was trying to detect any biases about law enforcement in the jury pool.

Fox and Croft were convicted Tuesday of two counts of conspiracy related to the kidnapping scheme and attempts to use a weapon of mass destruction. Prosecutors said they wanted to blow up a bridge to disrupt police if the abduction could be pulled off at Whitmer’s vacation home.

Croft, 46, a trucker from Bear, Delaware, was also convicted of another explosives charge. The jury deliberated for roughly eight hours over two days.

“Today’s verdicts prove that violence and threats have no place in our politics and those who seek to divide us will be held accountable. They will not succeed,” said Whitmer, a Democrat, who turned 51 years old on Tuesday.

“But we must also take a hard look at the status of our politics,” she added. “Plots against public officials and threats to the FBI are a disturbing extension of radicalized domestic terrorism that festers in our nation, threatening the very foundation of our republic.”

Law enforcement officials across the country have been warning about an increase in threats and the potential for violence against agents or buildings.

Fox and Croft, who face sentences of up to life in prison, just stared at the jury as the verdicts were read. Defense attorney Christopher Gibbons shook his head while another defense lawyer, Joshua Blanchard, removed his glasses.

Jurors declined to speak to reporters.

“It’s been a good fight. We were hoping for a different outcome,” Gibbons said.

During closing arguments Monday, a prosecutor had a blunt message: No one can strap on an AR-15 rifle and body armor and snatch a governor.

“But that wasn’t the defendants’ ultimate goal,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said. “They wanted to set off a second American civil war, a second American Revolution, something that they call the boogaloo. And they wanted to do it for a long time before they settled on Gov. Whitmer.”

The investigation began when Army veteran Dan Chappel joined a Michigan paramilitary group and became alarmed when he heard talk about killing police. He agreed to become an FBI informant and spent the summer of 2020 getting close to Fox and others, secretly recording conversations and participating in drills at “shoot houses” in Wisconsin and Michigan.

The FBI turned it into a major domestic terrorism case with two more informants and two undercover agents embedded in the group. Evidence showed the group had many gripes, particularly over stay-at-home orders and other pandemic restrictions imposed by Whitmer.

Fox, Croft and others, accompanied by the government operatives, traveled to northern Michigan to see Whitmer’s vacation home at night and a bridge that could be destroyed. Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, too, were on that ride. They pleaded guilty and testified for the prosecution.

Whitmer was not physically harmed; six men were arrested hours away from her home in October 2020.

David Porter, who leads the FBI in western Michigan, hailed the verdicts.

“Here in America, if you disagree with your government you have options. ... What you cannot do is plan or commit acts of violence,” he said outside the courthouse.

Defense attorneys tried to put the FBI on trial, repeatedly emphasizing through cross-examination of witnesses and during closing remarks that federal players were present at every crucial event and had entrapped the men.

Fox and Croft, they said, were “big talkers” who liked to smoke marijuana and were guilty of nothing but exercising their right to say vile things about Whitmer and government.

“This isn’t Russia. This isn’t how our country works,” Blanchard, Croft’s attorney, told jurors. “You don’t get to suspect that someone might commit a crime because you don’t like things that they say, that you don’t like their ideologies.”

Gibbons said the FBI isn’t supposed to create “domestic terrorists.” He described Fox, 39, as poor and living in the basement of a Grand Rapids-area vacuum shop, which was a site for meetings with Chappel and an agent.

No sentencing date was set. U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker told defense lawyers that any post-trial challenges to the verdicts should be filed under seal for now. Blanchard raised concerns about the motivation of a juror on the third day of trial.

In separate but related cases, eight other men linked to the kidnapping scheme are being prosecuted by the Michigan attorney general in state courts.

Whitmer in 2020 blamed Trump for stoking mistrust and fomenting anger over coronavirus restrictions and refusing to condemn hate groups and right-wing extremists like those charged in Michigan.

On Aug. 6, three days before jury selection, Trump told conservative activists that the kidnapping plan was a “fake deal.”

*I GUESS THE DEFENSE OF THE ACCUSED BEING

 "ENTRAPPED" INTO COMMITTING A CRIME THAT THEIR

 ATTORNEYS SAID THEY DID NOT COMMIT, WAS NOT

A RATIONAL BASIS FOR ACQUITAL. WE CALL THAT

 CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS. TO BAD THE SCOTUS ISN'T

 HELD TO THIS LEVEL OF COMPETENCE.

Trump Had More Than 300 Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago. NEW YORK TIMES.

 

The National Archives found more than 150 sensitive documents when it got a first batch of material from the former president in January, helping to explain the Justice Department’s urgent response.

LINK: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/22/us/politics/trump-mar-a-lago-documents.html?smid=url-share

CNN Exclusive: 'Ludicrous.' 'Ridiculous.' 'A complete fiction.': Former Trump officials say his claim of 'standing order' to declassify is nonsense. (WITH A LINK TO AN ADDITIONAL ARTICLE ON THIS TOPIC FROM THE WEBSITE)

By Jamie Gangel, Elizabeth Stuart and Jeremy Herb, CNN

Washington (CNN)In the days since the FBI seized classified and top secret documents from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, the former President and his allies have claimed that Trump had a "standing order" to declassify documents he took from the Oval Office to the White House residence.

But 18 former top Trump administration officials tell CNN they never heard any such order issued during their time working for Trump, and that they believe the claim to be patently false.

Several officials laughed at the notion. One senior administration official called it "bullsh*t." Two of Trump's former chiefs of staff went on the record to knock down the claim.

"Nothing approaching an order that foolish was ever given," said John Kelly, who served as Trump's chief of staff for 17 months from 2017 to 2019. "And I can't imagine anyone that worked at the White House after me that would have simply shrugged their shoulders and allowed that order to go forward without dying in the ditch trying to stop it."

Mick Mulvaney, who succeeded Kelly as acting White House chief of staff, also dismissed the idea and told CNN he was "not aware of a general standing order" during his tenure.

In addition, CNN spoke with former national security and intelligence officials as well as White House lawyers and Justice Department officials. Taken together, their tenure covers all four years of the Trump administration, and many served in positions where they would either be included in the declassification process, or at the very least, be aware of such orders.

Official after official scoffed at the claim Trump had a standing order to declassify documents that left the Oval Office and were taken to the residence.

"Total nonsense," one senior White House official said. "If that's true, where is the order with his signature on it? If that were the case, there would have been tremendous pushback from the Intel Community and DoD, which would almost certainly have become known to Intel and Armed Services Committees on the Hill."

Many of the officials spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity in order to candidly discuss internal Trump administration dynamics as well as to avoid any potential blowback from the former President.

Blanket claims of declassification

Trump and his allies have made a wide range of claims about declassification in the days after the FBI's August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, which resulted in federal agents seizing 11 sets of classified documents -- including some marked with the highest levels of classification.

On his social media platform Truth Social last week, Trump made the sweeping claim that the documents in the boxes seized by the FBI at his home were "all declassified."

John Solomon, editor-in-chief of conservative website "Just the News," was more specific in an interview with Fox's Sean Hannity last week. Solomon, who Trump named as one of his designees to the National Archives, read a statement from Trump's team claiming that the former President "had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them."

Kash Patel, a Trump ally and former national security official in the Trump administration -- and also one of the former president's designees to the Archives -- also said on Fox last week that Trump "issued sweeping declassification orders on multiple occasions." Patel said he did not know whether the boxes at Mar-a-Lago contained documents that were part of those orders.

Representatives for the former President did not respond to requests for comment. Solomon and Patel also did not respond.

The FBI's unprecedented search warrant of the former President's residence in Florida was the result of a federal investigation into the removal of classified material from the White House as Trump was leaving office. The investigation goes well beyond the question of whether the material was classified: The search warrant made public last week identifies possible violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records as reasons for the search.

On Thursday, a judge heard arguments to unseal additional materials in the investigation, including the affidavit federal investigators would have had to file laying out why they believed there was probable cause that a crime had been committed. The Justice Department opposes releasing the affidavit, saying it would harm the ongoing criminal investigation.

'It can't just be an idea in his head'

Even if Trump had sought to broadly declassify documents, there is a specific process that the president is supposed to follow, the officials said. Declassification must be memorialized and includes careful reviews and notifying agencies such as the CIA, NSA, Department of Energy, State Department and Defense Department.

"It can't just be an idea in his head," said David Laufman, the former chief of the Justice Department's counterintelligence division who investigated Hillary Clinton's handling of classified documents. "Programs and officials would have been notified. There is no evidence they were."

Laufman's successor, Jay Bratt, was one of the four federal investigators who met with Trump's attorneys about the documents at Mar-a-Lago in June, CNN has previously reported.

One source familiar with declassification inside the Trump White House said although it is true that the President has broad declassification powers, Trump would have needed to create a record of it -- and the source said he did not do that.

"As a practical matter, you have to prove it," the source said. "If he says, 'I declassified something,' the obvious question is, 'Did you tell anybody about it?' The obvious concern is that this is all after the fact."

Another source with knowledge of how the former president operated said it was Trump's view that he could declassify information anytime and any way he wanted.

"He was counseled that's not the way it works," the source said.

'A complete fiction'

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton called the notion of a standing declassification order "a complete fiction."

"I was not briefed on anything like that when I started as national security adviser," Bolton said on CNN's "New Day" earlier this week. "I never heard of it, never saw it in operation, never knew anything about it."

In addition, Olivia Troye, a former homeland security adviser to then Vice President Mike Pence, called the notion of a blanket declassification "ludicrous." Another former senior intelligence official laughed and said it was "ridiculous."

And a source familiar with White House records and declassification said Trump's claim was "laughable" and that if any such order existed, it was "Trump's best kept secret."

Multiple sources said they believed that Trump's claim the documents were declassified was nothing more than a transparent attempt to try to defend himself for taking the documents to Mar-a-Lago.

"There is a process to declassify, the president can't just wave a magic wand," a former senior Trump White House official said.

All 18 former Trump administration officials who spoke to CNN agreed. "It doesn't even work that way, there is an actual process," said one former White House national security official.

"If this existed, there had to be some way to memorialize it," Bolton said on "New Day." "The White House counsel had to write it down. Otherwise, how would people throughout the government know what to declassify?"

'They would have resigned'

A former senior intelligence official said intelligence community leaders, such as then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, would have been informed of any declassification orders.

"And they would not have allowed it," the official said. "They would have resigned."

Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy and an expert on classification, noted that presidents have nearly unlimited discretion to classify and declassify information. But Aftergood said the notion that a document was declassified based on its location -- such as taking it out of the White House -- simply "strains credulity."

"A document that is classified in Washington, DC, is unclassified in Florida -- one could say such a thing, but it is nonsensical," he said. "And it calls into question the good faith of anyone who would make such a claim."

Troye, the former homeland security adviser to Pence, said, "there would be a paper trail of this blanket authority being the case, and in two and a half years of working in national security in the White House, not once did I ever hear this discussed."

Troye resigned from the Trump administration in August 2020 and now leads an anti-Trump Republican group.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, a CNN political commentator who resigned as White House communications director shortly after the 2020 presidential election, called a blanket declassification "deeply reckless."

"The idea that a president or former could essentially do whatever they want with our nation's secrets poses an incalculable risk to US national security," Griffin said.

"We would know," another former intelligence official said, adding that trying to say the documents were automatically declassified is like "trying to close the barn door after the horse."

CNN's Gloria Borger, Evan Perez, Sara Murray and Gabby Orr contributed to this report.

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MORE ON THE "TRUMP" METHOD OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE.

THE "EMPTY" ASSERTION: THE DEMAGOGUES BEST FRIEND.

https://searchingforreasondotnet.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-empty-assertion-demagogues-best.html?

FROM THE PUBLISHER.

I know TRUMP is a SOCIOPATH, who cares about nothing but himself, but do any of his supporters have any sense of Dignity or Honor? Do you really hate the U.S. that much, where you would allow a 2nd Rate Hitler wannabe the opportunity to destroy our Republic?