Roger Stone’s lease on his new pad in the House of Many Doors starts July 14. In cheerier days of yore, he anticipated a presidential pardon to get him off the hook. Indeed, he had his daughter go on Fox News and plead his case to the faithful. And he might have had a shot at it. But things change and in today’s political hellscape, things are not looking rosy for Stone. Trump’s advisers are purportedly adamant that Stone not be pardoned, lest it contribute to Trump’s and their own already huge problems. Vanity Fair:
According to sources, Trump has told people he wants to commute Stone’s sentence before Stone reports to prison on July 14. Rumors swirled over the weekend that Trump would announce it on Sunday night. Sources say the West Wing is at war over a possible Stone commutation. White House counsel Pat Cipollone is against the move, and even Attorney General Bill Barr is opposed. “Barr has told Trump not to do it, and if he does there will be a mutiny at DOJ,” said a source briefed on the internal debates. People close to Trump fear he won’t listen. “You can’t underestimate how hard it is to get information through to him,” a Republican close to the White House said. “When you talk to him, he just talks at you. He doesn’t like to read memos, so there’s not really a way to get through to him. Everyone agrees.” (The White House declined to comment.)
Trump doesn’t read. That’s not new information. And being a stable genius, he doesn’t listen to the experts. He does all the talking and he’s as wont to go off into quoting conspiracy theory as anything else. Washington Post:
Trump does not read the PDB. Or much of anything else, a former senior White House official told me. As his presidency began, it was an open question: Would Trump even bother to sit for CIA briefings? He didn’t, at first, and did so only after Mike Pompeo, then his CIA director, agreed to be there. Trump’s distrust of the intelligence services was stoked by their conclusion that Russia had intervened in the election on his behalf. Given his hostility toward the intelligence community, and his Twitter-sized attention span, Trump would be a challenge for any briefer. […]
For decades, the president’s daily briefs (PDBs) have sounded early warnings on everything from enemy troop movements to pandemics to terrorist attacks. Yet under Trump, the president’s intelligence briefings have almost completely broken down. His oral briefings, given daily to most presidents, now take place as rarely as once or twice a week. These sessions often turn into monologues in which the president spitballs woolly conspiracy theories from Breitbart, Fox News and hangers-on at Mar-a-Lago, say intelligence officials who are familiar with his briefings. Convinced that the intelligence community is a “deep state,” honeycombed with traitors, the president rarely believes anything the CIA tells him. […]
Trump’s first briefer was Ted Gistaro, a widely respected career CIA officer on loan to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), where he oversaw the PDB. Gistaro, who has a calm demeanor and a healthy sense of humor, got almost nowhere — so the briefing team devised a show and tell. Pictures of New York City landmarks, agency briefers thought, might help Trump grasp threats. In an effort to explain the scale of North Korea’s nuclear program, the CIA built a model of the Hermit Kingdom’s underground weapons facility and put a miniature Statue of Liberty inside it.
You know, I think this guy is on to something. Show and tell. Translate everything for Trump in simple terms. Build him toy models and make little movies for him. Maybe we could explain nuclear war to him by having a Godzilla plush toy breathe confetti fire and waddle across a card table, stomping on toy soldiers. And little match boxes could collapse while talcum powder and glitter rain down from above. And a voice over narration could intone, “And after the big flash of light and the big boom everything was still for thousands and thousands of years. And the earth glowed a bright blue in the dark and there was nothing to breathe. And even people in other galaxies could see it and they stayed away. The End. And we mean ‘The End.'”
Think how amazing it will be to have somebody who reads and thinks in the White House — and who can walk on a ramp and drink water. Not just talking about Uncle Joe, talking about anybody else to come. Trump has so thoroughly dynamited the bar for presidential behavior, if he just gets through the campaign without soiling himself on stage, it will be a relief to see. If you think this jest, right now he’s at the stage of getting a standing ovation in Tulsa for drinking a glass of water with one hand. Never forget that.
I expect him to pardon Stone within days.
Well, the optics of it are horrible. And the DOJ lawyers who prosecuted the case will go ballistics and rightfully so.
In that event, I expect it will end any hope he had of a clean getaway.
Tin Wonan, I believe you are right. Unfortunately.
I do not think I would mention the ramp or the water. There is so much better ammunition available. One day we might have a president with a disability of some sort, maybe sooner than we think if Tammy Duckworth is the VP. A disability should never be used against the person.
The problem with the ramp and the water is that his opponents made something out of it. Trump should have ignored the nonsense. Instead he and his supporters took the bait, and responded in a foolish way.
The tone of the end of the piece was intended as tongue in cheek.
Call me heartless but when a man has been this demeaning of others’ physical handicaps, I have zero compunction on ramming the same in his face.
I’m with you. Senator Duckworth is a hero by any measure. She lost her legs defending her country. WTF has the talking head on Fox News ever done except foment dissension and gin up the lunatic fringe? I hope he loses more advertisers. I am furious about this.
I am furious, too. But we need to avoid double standards. Self-justification is human nature. For example, bullies always think their victims deserve it. Wife-beaters the same. Trump has been an interesting case study as someone in whom every aspect of human nature is on display. His supporters call it “not being PC.”
Here is an actual comment from the Federalist: “we voted for Trump because we were delighted to find a politician willing to say politically-incorrect truths that everyone else pretends don’t exist. Most politicians lie. If one of them is willing to at least occasionally tell the truth, including truths other politicians are denying, I’ll take it.”
They read an article like this: https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/07/12/trump-lies/ and conclude that everyone is lying about Trump. They totally gloss over the author’s conclusion: “It has to be acknowledged that since January, many of Trump’s opponents, and even lukewarm supporters, have found considerable fault with his policies and behavior, based on accurate facts. There have been many occasions when Trump himself, undistorted and unfiltered, contributed mightily to the five personas we have outlined.”
Succumbing to human nature leads to authentic cases of “both sides do it.” It only weakens our case.
Oh, there’s no double standard, Dana. You’re a prick about others’ shortcomings, therefore you are fair game when you fail to live up to them yourself. And given how this crowd loves equating physical defects with moral ones, I just shove that even harder.
The old rules of conduct apply: give respect, get respect. Give none, get none. THAT’S my morality.
Dana, with all due respect what “double standards” are you talking about? Trump and so many of his “devout Christian” followers seem to forget so much of Jesus’s words that the idea of a “double standard” with regard to Trump simply does NOT exist.
Remember the “Golden Rule”? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?” Well, Trump and his “Christian” followers have flushed that into the toilet and sent it so far down the sewers that they deserve EVERY justified criticism of their bullcrap hypocrisy that is flung their way.
Maybe you remember Al Franken? There’s a victim of a “double standard” if ever there was one. He wasn’t even given the opportunity to clear his name and reputation–by his own party, of all things–because it was more “proper” that he be brought down over ALLEGATIONS of improper behavior while Donald Trump–a man who’s been accused by DOZENS of different women over many years and who was caught on a hot mic talking about “grabbing women” by a certain part of the female anatomy (and using a rather crude term for it) and who openly, and creepily, talked about his own daughter in sexual terms that NO DECENT FATHER would ever do–continues to sit his fat ass in the White House, never having even offered the merest semblance of an apology for ANY of his behavior (he couldn’t even be bothered to give one of those half-ass non-apology apologies).
And you warn US about “double standards?”
Please.
Atta boy, Joseph! I agree 100%!
The misbehavior of others is not a justification for our own misbehavior, no matter how tempting to our human nature. I thought we all learned by the third grade that “he did it first” is not an acceptable defense. defense.
Ask anybody familiar with the term “playing the dozens”, with a bully particularly, on the schoolyard as a kid, and they will tell you how you handle them. And it’s not by “going high” when they are going low.
So what? Schoolchildren are immature.
What I learned in third grade is that bullies don’t leave you alone just because you’re being the “bigger person”. And that against such persons, there is no such thing as a cheap shot. Do NOT confuse my path with that of sainthood, a familiar right wing cant when they whine how our alleged “tolerance” doesn’t extend to them. For someone like Trump, this is EXACTLY what they deserve.
Whether he deserves it or not, it is counter-productive. Remember, they believe that Obama deserved the scorn they heaped upon him. People always find a way to justify what they want to do anyway. All it does is make his base more enthusiastic,and let’as him play one of his favorite roles—the victim. For example, somebody at the Federalist linked to this Snopes article to prove that all criticism of Trump was just lies (while ignoring the conclusion of the article). https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/07/12/trump-lies/
Upvoted you, Bareshark–only wish I could upvote you 100 times.
Given his own history of mocking (at the very least) people with disabilities, Trump DESERVES every bit of mockery at every single seeming physical dysfunction.
Glad you thought so, Joseph. I got very little tolerance for bullies on a good day and that’s all Trump is. So when he falls, I’ll be putting on my metaphorical steel toes and commence with the metaphorical kicking. Unless you want the behavior to repeat, examples must be made. That’s why isolated villages scatter the body parts of their enemies around the perimeter.
The way to stop a bully is not to bully back.
Spoken like someone who never dealt with bullies on the regular. So spare your high-minded idealism.
Oh my gosh, you have no idea.
Oh, sorry. We’re looking at a guy who has no empathy or sympathy, and has mocked, ON LIVE TV, people with disabilities.
So what? That is exactly the reason to avoid it. We need to stay away from double standards. And we certainly shouldn’t make his behavior our bar.
Yes, Dana, tRump always takes the bait. And you are absolutely right that we should not make fun of a legitimate disability. tRump believes he is perfect, which makes it hard for lots of people–me included– to refrain from noting when he does something less than perfect (which seems to be 99% of the time!).
Well, good for you, Meg. But I never claimed to be better, just less of a hypocrite. So I’m going Underworld-low for guys like Trump.
Pissed off DOJ employees make great leakers. The bestest leakers. Many many people are saying that. That’s what I hear……… we’ll see what happens.
Bill Palmer has the right idea: the REAL reason Barr doesn’t want this is if Trump shoots his load now, there’ll be a massive court battle over it. Nobody else will likely be getting any get of jail free cards in the aftermath…including Barr, who is on the hook for multiple felonies.
Barr is afraid that the people he’s demoted/sidelined/fired will tell all to the courts.
Another reason, yes…and when you’ve been this public about your crimes, it’s got to make you sweat bullets.
Absolutely, the interval from today until the front end of November is getting so short, for any time to recover from the debacle forming more every day in the WH … made up stuff has to be tweeked into reality upgrade slowly, the group has to be informed by the Turtle … every thing just right …
Barr and Trump, two spherical examples of being detached from hard line reality, like the old steel pin balls bouncing around those old incredible glass-topped machines, full of relays, hundreds of wires from certain sensors, planted in those bumpers and rubber barriers that when hit by that wobbling, unstable ball, call for a reaction, a solenoid plunger, shooting the ball off in a different direction, or a lever, swinging against the ball sending it in a prescribed direction, usually into the final dump-off track … these two cretins are always doing something for themselves, we can NEVER forget that … Trump is swinging on a pendulum of idiocy, that is easily diverted to the really dangerous action buttons that float in his totally empty brain of sparkle farts …
There are two buttons, like new, virtually unused, one is [YES] the other is [NO] these are the ones called for by our smarter reporters that can ask questions of the fake POTUS that demand simple, “yes or no”, answers … all GOP freaks do the Trump thing as well, NEVER answer with a simple yes or no … the best answers become an entertaining ditty about global warming, or how WELL the virus fight has been going … ,”only lost 10,000 yesterday in this town”, …
Bareshark, you are dead on with standing firm against the bully bastards, since the GOP, et. all republicans simply DO NOT CARE to hear the truth with open arms … steel toes are a must … as an example, George on This Week, ABC has had Trump up against the ropes on that Y or N needed answer several times, Trump prattles on, waving hands, making bizarre faces, George just repeats the question a couple times and in the interest of time shifts gears to a new question …
Perhaps these interviewers can really be, “steely”, in response to Trump’s nonsense, from here on out since the vote is getting closer … stall the prattle, with, “we need to hear your answer on this so we can move on”, we need to hear a Y or N answer, NOW, are you the one that did this? … any other word but Yes or No out of his face, BAM! George, stops him and says, “So once again, ad nausea, you refuse to answer a question with simple Yes or No answers, does this mean you don’t really know the answer because you are not smart, or ill-informed, or prefer to NOT tell the public, what they need to hear?”
Excellent advice. We will see if they heed it, or if any of this occurs to them, since I don’t know if they read your blog………..livejumps.com
Open this site…….>>>> http://Www.Fox200.Com
I have been thinking the last few days, since the talk of a Biden landslide in November, that what will happen is this: that is when all the pardons happen; and he doesn’t slink off to mar a lago but to some place with no extradition to avoid the crossbar hilton.
Cassandra, I truly believe tRump may even have a flight plan in place for the day after the election. He might not want to stick around for the Lame Donald…er, Lame Duck session. It could get ugly!
I expect him to screw even THATup.
At least Biden won’t need any transitioning briefings from Trump staff.
All the next president has to do is stand still and that will be an improvement over tRump.
You’re right. Biden has done almost zero campaigning and is bearing Trump in every poll. Trump’s “Biden hiding in his basement” smear can’t get legs because it’s working.
zoya
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