It’s Thursday.
There are 2 Days Until:
There are 3 Days Until:
We are This Many Days Away from the 2020 Presidential Election. ⬇️
With 5 Days to go before American’s head to the polls, President Dipstick has tweeted 8 14 times and retweeted 1 2 times so far.
12:09 a.m. D.C., time.
1. Endorses Maria Elvira Salazar for Congress by using a Salazar tweet from September 29th, 2020.
Speaking of Puppets…
This morning the New York Times reported that President Obstructionist Obstructed an investigation into a bank and individuals in Turkey.
Geoffrey S. Berman was outraged. The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Mr. Berman had traveled to Washington in June 2019 to discuss a particularly delicate case with Attorney General William P. Barr and some of his top aides: a criminal investigation into Halkbank, a state-owned Turkish bank suspected of violating U.S. sanctions law by funneling billions of dollars of gold and cash to Iran.
For months, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey had been pressing President Trump to quash the investigation, which threatened not only the bank but potentially members of Mr. Erdogan’s family and political party. When Mr. Berman sat down with Mr. Barr, he was stunned to be presented with a settlement proposal that would give Mr. Erdogan a key concession.
Mr. Barr pressed Mr. Berman to allow the bank to avoid an indictment by paying a fine and acknowledging some wrongdoing. In addition, the Justice Department would agree to end investigations and criminal cases involving Turkish and bank officials who were allied with Mr. Erdogan and suspected of participating in the sanctions-busting scheme.
New York Times. 10/29/2020.
The account published by the New York Times, is based on interviews with “more than two dozen current and former Turkish and U.S. government officials, lobbyists and lawyers with direct knowledge of the interactions. Representatives for the Turkish government, Halkbank.”
The White House and the Department of Justice declined to comment on the story.
The pressure to allow Halkbank, who is suspect of aiding Iran, first started months before Dumbest-Lowest Barr was confirmed as Attorney General. According to the article, Acting AG Matt “Big Dick Toilet” Whitaker rejected a request “from Mr. Berman for permission to file criminal charges against the bank, two lawyers involved in the investigation said. Mr. Whitaker blocked the move shortly after Mr. Erdogan repeatedly pressed Mr. Trump in a series of conversations in November and December 2018 to resolve the Halkbank matter.”
They go on to say that President I Obstruct therefore I am was discussing the active investigation into Halkbank with Erdogan.
Mr. Trump’s sympathetic response to Mr. Erdogan was especially jarring because it involved accusations that the bank had undercut Mr. Trump’s policy of economically isolating Iran, a centerpiece of his Middle East plan.
New York Times. 10/29/2020.
Former White House officials said they came to fear that the president was open to swaying the criminal justice system to advance a transactional and ill-defined agenda of his own.
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton is quoted as saying; He would interfere in the regular government process to do something for a foreign leader. In anticipation of what? In anticipation of another favor from that person down the road.
Fiona Hill the former National Security Council member who oversaw Turkey and Europe is quoted as saying; This was a relationship that was really important for the United States to handle. And at every turn, the president kept leaping in, and he wasn’t following the strategic threads of the relationship.
While Turkey had started their lobbying campaign during the Obama Administration key players from the Trump Orbit became players they include, “Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor; Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser; and Brian D. Ballard, a lobbyist and fund-raiser for the president.”
More from the article:
Once Mr. Trump took office, there were early hints that Mr. Erdogan’s message was getting through to the White House.
The National Security Council asked the Education Department about a network of charter schools, partly funded with federal money, that were said to be linked to Mr. Gulen, the Erdogan rival who was living in Pennsylvania. The agency was then asked if the money could be blocked, one official involved in the conversations said. But Education Department officials resisted, saying they did not have the legal authority to stop the funding.
The White House encountered a similar lack of enthusiasm at the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I., which received requests to investigate Mr. Gulen and look for ways to perhaps force him out of the United States, officials involved in the efforts said. The F.B.I. declined to comment.
By early 2018, it had led to the indictments of nine defendants, including Turkey’s former economy minister and three Halkbank officials, on charges such as bank fraud and money laundering related to the sanctions-evasion scheme.
One defendant, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, the bank’s deputy general manager for international banking, was tried and, in January 2018, convicted.
Mr. Zarrab, the gold trader, had pleaded guilty and testified about how the scheme had relied on false documents and front companies, and how he had paid millions of dollars in bribes to the economy minister and Halkbank’s general manager.
He also testified that the operation had Mr. Erdogan’s knowledge and approval, as well as that of Mr. Erdogan’s son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, who now serves as Turkey’s finance minister.
When Mr. Berman was appointed U.S. attorney in January 2018, prosecutors were turning their focus to the bank itself and the possibility of charging others involved in the scheme.
<thread>
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) October 29, 2020
Blockbuster report (a case I’ve followed closely)
Highlights
1. Trump tried to obstruct righteous prosecution of #Iran sanction-busters!
2. Fired US Attorney to help Erdogan
3. @JoeBiden, when VP, did the opposite
Exquisite reporting by @EricLiptonNYT @BenWeiserNYT https://t.co/szPZEcjIfD
2. The final sentence in the story is what many have wondered.
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) October 29, 2020
The NYT report is a breakthrough:
“Justice Department officials cited [US Attorney Geoffrey Berman’s] handling of the Halkbank matter … as a key reason for his removal.”
3/3. Trump vs Biden
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) October 29, 2020
When Erdogan tried to press Biden to intervene in the case, Biden pushed him off. Told Erdogan:
“If the president were to take this into his own hands, what would happen would be he would be impeached.”
Biden was right. It was impeachable. And Trump did it.
For the record, at this time, the New York Times reporting has not been confirmed by other outlets, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, just means at the present time, the New York Times, is the only source.
What should also be pointed out, this is the second time President Twitter-Tweeter has tweeted one tweet just after 12:01 a.m. D.C., time. Just one tweet scheduled most likely to post at some time in the middle of the night.
8:43 a.m. D.C., time.
2. Post a video of some guy named “Barry” endorsing him.
Barry says in part, it’s 2 minutes long, that he is voting for “the Don,” because he’s the “best President since sliced bread.” He continues to excitedly praise President Sells Us Out for Personal Favors.
8:51 a.m. D.C., time.
3. Join his army of Pollwatchers.
8:49 a.m. D.C., time.
4. Yet another Propaganda campaign ad, filmed on our White House grounds.
Propagandist: A really big factor in this election is the fact that Joe Biden and Kamala [Harris] want to raise your taxes and raise them like nobody’s ever been raised before. It will the biggest increase in the history of our country [drink] and we can’t let that happen. Because it’ll drive our country into a depression, your 401k’s will crash, your stocks will crash, your home values will crash, everything will come down. You can’t have it, we can’t let it happen. The Wall Street Journal just estimated if you d this crazy, Biden plan, you’ll lose $6,500 of your wealth every year, over a short period of time. So, bottom line, we can’t have an increase in taxes, I’m going to substantially reduce your taxes [without spending cuts, lowering taxes is pointless]. They’re going to substantially increase your taxes. Get out and vote. You must get out and vote. This is the most important election in the history of our country [drink]. There’s never been an election so important. Taxes is big, but have a lot of other big points. But I have to point out, they want to raise your taxes more than anybody has ever raised them before. We can’t let that happen. I’m cutting your taxes. Thank you.
9:35 a.m. D.C., time.
5. Is watching Fox News…
IF you’re wondering why President Trump isn’t touting the GDP numbers yet, the answer is apparently that his DVR hasn’t gotten to that news yet.
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) October 29, 2020
Left, Fox & Friends, 8:22 a.m.
Right, Trump, 9:35 a.m. pic.twitter.com/KdkzIi0rpx
9:55 a.m. D.C., time.
6. Caught up with the GDP growth news.
YUP. Time gap matches.
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) October 29, 2020
Left, Fox & Friends, 8:40 a.m.
Right, Trump, 9:55 a.m. pic.twitter.com/tSJunnPtib
CNBC News explains that “Third-quarter gross domestic product, a measure of the total goods and services produced in the July-to-September period, expanded at a 33.1% annualized pace, according to the department’s initial estimate for the period. The gain came after a 31.4% plunge in the second quarter and was better than the 32% estimate from economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The previous post-World War II record was the 16.7% burst in the first quarter of 1950.”
Senior economist at AllianceBernstein, Eric Winograd, said it’s good news the economy bounced back, but cautioned there was still more work to do.
It’s obviously good news that the economy bounced back in the third quarter.
There’s still a lot of work to do here and the pace of improvement … is going to slow. The stimulus programs that provided much of the economic lift last quarter have expired or are expiring. Fiscal support is diminishing. That is part of the reason that the pace of growth is going to slow from here.
CNBC News. 10/29/2020.
They note; While the headline number “looks spectacular,” it still leaves growth 3.5% beneath its level at the end of 2019, according to Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. Shepherdson expects the consumer and business investment rebound that led Q3 to “rise much less quickly” in the final three months of the year. “Absent new stimulus, and with Covid infections spreading rapidly, we’re sticking to our 4% forecast for Q4 growth, though the margin of error here is large at this point,” he added”
They conclude their article by saying; The annualized measure represents how much GDP would grow over the course of a year at the current pace from the same level a year ago. In terms of raw percent change from a year earlier, the economy contracted 9% in the second quarter and 2.9% in Q3.
For What It’s worth:
Democratic Nominee Joe Biden also weighed-in on the news of the GDP via Twitter.
10:07 a.m. D.C., time.
7. Thanks someone for endorsing him.
12:24 p.m. D.C., time.
8. Thanks Super Fan Shouter Mark Levin.
🙄
Update.
He’s back…
12:46 p.m. D.C., time.
9. Offers a statement on the terror attack in France.
It's really too bad, that America doesn't stand with the 225,000 plus American's that have died due to your shitty handling of the coronavirus.
— Newshound (@NewsiesNeighbor) October 29, 2020
The Washington Post reports that a man shouting “Allahu akbar” has killed three people at a French church.
The knife-attack occurred in the southern French city of Nice on Thursday, with President Emmanuel Macron calling the incident “an Islamist terror attack.”
12:56 p.m. D.C., time.
10. After offering our support to France he moves on to attack former DHS employee Miles Taylor.
So it turns out that the wise guy promoted as “Anonymous” by the @nytimes, named Miles Taylor (who I never even heard of!), was only a little known “staffer” as opposed to a “Senior Administration Official”. He then scammed @CNN, lied to @andersoncooper, & got a job there….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2020
11. Accuses Google of having liability while Taylor worked for DHS. 🙄
….He also worked at, of all places, @Google. They all have big liability!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2020
They all have big liability!!!
Narrator: No they do not.
Former DHS Chief of Staff Miles Taylor, revealed that he was the author of an op-ed posted by the New York Times written by anonymous published on September 5th, 2018.
President Doesn’t Know Anyone, took to Twitter yesterday evening to say he has no idea who Miles Taylor is, Taylor responded.
1:05 p.m. D.C., time.
12. Praises the lower record of American’s filing for first time weekly unemployment.
ahahaha
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) October 29, 2020
Left, Fox's Outnumbered Overtime, 1:03 p.m.
John Roberts: "One other thing, it's been overlooked by all of this, the weekly jobless claims hit a seven month low when they came out today, still way too high, but a seven month low."
Right, Trump, 1:05 p.m. pic.twitter.com/xrjN3Iuxaa
From the article:
In a sign that the labor market is slowly continuing to improve, 751,000 Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week, the Department of Labor said Thursday in its last report before the presidential election.
That’s down 40,000 from the prior week, which was revised slightly higher. These figures reflect seasonal adjustments.Together, initial applications for benefits stood atabout 1.1 million last week without seasonal adjustments.
Continued jobless claims — which count people who have applied for benefits for at least two weeks in a row — stood at7.8 million, down 709,000 from the prior week’s revised level, on a seasonally adjusted basis.
The declining number of continued claims, however, is not necessarily a good sign. Long-term unemployment is surging as the national recovery softens amid a new surge in coronavirus cases. A growing number of laid-off workers have been unable to find new jobs and are exhausting the regular state benefits, which typically last 26 weeks.
They are shifting to an extended federal safety net, primarily the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which Congress also created in March to provide the jobless with an additional 13 weeks of benefits.A total of 22.7 million Americans — or roughly one-seventh of the US workforce — were claiming unemployment benefits, as of Oct. 10. That’s down 416,000 from the prior week.
“Alarmingly, there has been little attention paid to the fact that millions of Americans will soon run out of their unemployment benefits because they have not been called back to work or can’t find a job,” said Andrew Stettner, senior fellow at The Century Foundation.
CNN Business. 10/29/2020.
11:12 p.m. D.C., time.
13. Says the Democrats are trying to steal the election, again.
On Wednesday Courthouse News reported that the Supreme Court rejected “a second attempt by Pennsylvania Republicans to block an extended deadline for the state to tally absentee ballots.”
The vote was 5-3. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was confirmed to the court Monday night, did not participate in the decision “because of the need for a prompt resolution” of the issue, according to the court’s public information office.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro argued in his brief to the court in defense of the deadline extension, voters whose ballots were timely completed but not timely delivered due to restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic, were irreparably harmed without an extension.
Courthouse News.
“Voters who themselves played by the rules will be disenfranchised if this Court grants the requested stay; through no fault of their own, their votes will be irrevocably lost,” the brief states.
On September 25, 2020, Courthouse News reported that, “the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected a request by Republicans on Thursday to stay a ruling issued last week that extends the state’s deadline for mail-in ballots.”
Without explaining its decision, the court, which holds a 5-2 Democratic majority, denied a request to go back on its ruling, which favored the Democratic Party’s argument that “strict enforcement of this [mail-in ballot] deadline, in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic and alleged delays in mail delivery by the USPS, will result in extensive voter disenfranchisement in violation of the Pennsylvania Constitution’s Free and Equal Elections Clause.”
Courthouse News. 09/25/2020.
The opinion said ballots postmarked Nov. 3 will be counted as long as they are received by 5 p.m. the Friday following the election. Ballots missing postmarks or with illegible postmarks will also be counted, the court said, as long as there is no indication they were sent after Election Day.
Real Clear Politics shows that Biden’s average of combined Pennsylvania polls is 49.6 percent while President Election Interfere is favored at 45.7 percent.
1:25 p.m. D.C., time.
14. Thanks a man he accused of murder more than once for appearing to praise him.
I don’t think based on his manner, that Scarborough was actually praising anything, he was simply saying that President Brags A Lot, could brag about the economy’s GDP with just days before the election.
This post might be updated.
This is an Open Thread.
