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It makes you wonder-is this 2018 or 1984? Indeed just the other day Trump sounded an awful lot like Orwell’s O’Brien in 1984-don’t believe what you read, don’t believe what you see. 

But then again, we knew this on day one of the Trump regime with the Inauguration-‘we have the largest crowds, period.’ And Sean Spicer is still at it. 

Then Kellyann Conway-aka Ms. O’Brien-told us clearly on Chuck Todd-alternative facts’-if the Great Leader tells you there’s an alternative fact where 2+2=5 you believe the great leader.

To be sure, saying that we knew this on day one of Trump’s illegitimate ‘Presidency’ is being too charitable. It was clear who Trump was long before that-too few were willing to listen to Maya Angelou when she warned when someone shows you who they are believe them the first time. 

Hillary used Ms. Angelou’s quote during the election-like on so much else Hillary was 100% right-but of course, that’s one thing her haters always hated about her. She was also right on what really ailed the economy -more so than Bernie but I digress, Suffice it say it’s not ‘bad trade deals’ primarily.

For his part President Obama warned and also not heeded that democracy is on the ballot, civil rights is on the ballet, an affordable wage is on the ballet, voting rights in on the ballot.

Last week after the news that Cohen is willing to testify to Mueller that he was in the room with Trump and Donald Jr and can testify firsthand that Jr did tell the faux ‘President’ about the offer by the Russian government for a #TreasonMeeting-which itself came on the heels of Cohen’s tape being released that showed Trump signed off on payments to quiet Karen McDougal and that it certainly was about the election-Paul Waldman put together a pretty good summary of Trump defender talking points.

“If you want to defend Trump on Russia, you’re going to have to do some work.”

“If you want to believe President Trump is innocent when it comes to Russia, you’re going to have to do some work. It’s not just that new information keeps coming out, and you’ll have to figure out whether it should be disbelieved (It’s not true!) or explained away (Even if it’s true, it’s perfectly fine!). You’ll also have to keep abreast of the president’s shifting stories and justifications so you can be up to date on what you’re supposed to say. And you’ll have to believe some things that are frankly unbelievable.”

“Now that Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former fixer, has publicly said that he was in the room when Trump was told beforehand of the infamous Trump Tower meeting Trump’s son, son-in-law and campaign chairman had with a group of Russians they believed would provide dirt on Hillary Clinton, and Trump gave the go-ahead for the meeting, Trump advocates are being called upon yet again for a new round of denials.”

Yes we see the whiplash coming first and foremost from Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani-who just so happens to also be a person of interest in the Mueller probe-and the probe into the leaks of rogue FBI agents on Clinton’s emails back in October, 2016-but there’s no conflict of interest there.

Or if I’m a Trumpster, I can at some point change my argument to even if it is a conflict of interest so what?

Giuliani just a few months ago was praising Cohen as a ‘fine man, a fine lawyer’ to now a pathological liar who cannot be believed about anything-sort of like the boss.

UPDATE: Giuliani just ratcheted it up to the next level by ‘warning;’ Cohen ‘publicly and privately’ that he’s violating attorney-client privilege. So, in other words, Rudy privately threatened a government witness in a criminal case.

It’s kind of tough to call Cohen out on attorney client privilege on the tape when Giuliani and Trump had already waived attorney client privilege on it…

UPDATE 2.0: Of course that’s exactly what Trump did in ‘forbidding’ Don McGhahn not to testify.

As for Rudy he’s now asking the Ukrainian government in broad daylight to help them dirty up Joe Biden.

While Pelosi says impeaching Trump for Russia collusion ‘isn’t worth it’ Trump and Giuliani are already colluding with the Ukraine-why not as there were no consequences the first time?

End of UPDATE 2.0

Waldman gives us a good list of variants of what Trump defenders now have to believe like that neither, Jr, nor Jared Kushner, nor Paul Manafort-Trump’s own G. Gordon Liddy would have mentioned the Russia meeting to Trump beforehand even though this was his campaign manager, son, and son in law holding a meeting in Trump’s own building where he had an office just down the hall.

UPDATE 3.0: Manafort has indeed proved to be G. Gordon Liddy 2.0 as he’s been sentenced to 7 and a half years-even if that/s a relatively light sentence compared to what he could have got-yet he probably could have gotten less had he not chosen to lie to Mueller to protect the extent of collusion regarding Konstanin Kilminik and all that. In the Mueller Report, Robert Gates states Manafort told him not to cooperate as #TeamTreasonTrump would take care of them. 

Or that:

“It’s mere coincidence that between the email to Don Jr. and the Trump Tower meeting, Trump touted damaging information he was about to reveal about Hillary”

Or that:

“The Trump team released a false statement to the public about the Trump Tower meeting even though they hadn’t done anything wrong.”

Or that Trump lied about being the one to craft this false statement for no particular reason. Or that

“Working with representatives of the Russian government to get dirt on your opponent is perfectly fine.”

It is fine unless it’s the Steele dossier at least the part of it funded by Clinton and the Democrats.

In other words, defending Trump requires you to be deeply immersed in Orwell’s world where 2+2=5 and something can be A and non-A at the same time.

Which is exactly how Darrell Issa who was so self righteous when he ran the House Oversight Committee on issues like the fake scandal Fast and Furious is suddenly such a moral libertine. Ok maybe Trump did collude but who wouldn’t?

Issa simply takes the next step-rather than arguing who to believe, he simply declares it immaterial-even if true it’s fine. The party that once impeached a twice popularly elected President over lying about sex is now fine with lying, is fine with collusion.

“Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Saturday downplayed renewed scrutiny over whether President Trump knew in advance about his son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton before the 2016 election, saying “nobody’s going to be surprised.”

“Issa was pressed by Fox News’s Neil Cavuto during an interview on whether Trump could face legal consequences if proof emerges that he knew about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting that was billed to Donald Trump Jr. as “part of Russia and its government’s support” for Trump.”

“If he’s proven to have not told the whole truth about the fact that campaigns look for dirt, and if someone offers it, you listen to them, nobody’s going to be surprised,” Issa told Cavuto. “There are some things in politics that you just take for granted.”

“You don’t think this has any long-term impact?” Cavuto pressed. “He wouldn’t be the first politician, or president for that matter, to maybe just misrepresent things?”

“Businessmen listen to almost everyone who might be helpful, and by the way, they make pragmatic decisions about how to make bad stories go away,” Issa replied.

This uses a couple of the Paul Waldman’s talking points. It, of course, argues ‘I don’t know if I believe it, but even if it is true so what?’ The record will show that everybody doesn’t do it-Al Gore didn’t.

But it also uses another tactic-the Trump team released a false statement to the public even though they’d done nothing wrong.

Interestingly, Sam Nunberg was on Chuck Todd this morning, and it’s quite a metamorphosis actually. For months he’d presented himself as a close friend and defender of Michael Cohen who criticized Trump for his shabby treatment of such a loyal foot solider.

Now he’s done a 180 and sounds not like a Cohen loyalist but a Trump loyalist.

“During an interview on NBC News’ “Meet The Press,” Nunberg said Sunday that he believes Trump over Cohen, though he never discussed the claims with Cohen.”

“If Michael Cohen says now he knew about the Russia meeting in advance, I would believe Don Jr. and the president in light of learning Michael was taping conversations,” Nunberg told host Chuck Todd.

This is surreal as he’d previously expressed deep skepticism-as did Steve Bannon-that Don Jr and friends wouldn’t have told Trump about the #TreasonMeeting.

“Nunberg’s statements on Sunday fly in the face of comments he made earlier this year when he went on a wild media blitz after being ordered to turn over emails and communications to the special counsel Robert Mueller as part of the Russia investigation.

In one interview, Nunberg told MSNBC that Trump “may have done something during the election,” adding that he didn’t know for sure.”

At another point, Nunberg called Trump an “idiot.”

“He later told CNN that Mueller “thinks Trump is the Manchurian candidate ,” a phrase referring to a politician who has been brainwashed to work on behalf of a foreign government.”

“When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Nunberg whether he believed Trump’s statement that he did not know about the meeting in advance, Nunberg said he didn’t.”

“Jake, I’ve watched your news reports. You know it’s not true,” Nunberg said. “He talked about it a week before. And I don’t know why he did this. All he had to say was: ‘Yeah, we met with the Russians. The Russians offered us something, and we thought they had something, and that was it.’ I don’t know why he went around trying to hide it.”

Nunberg testified to a grand jury in the Russia investigation in March.

This is an interesting variant of the whiplash you need to defend Trump. Nunberg actually thought Trump was lying about not having discussed the #TreasonMeeting beforehand-until  Cohen expressedt he same view. Now he believes Trump-evidently because Cohen agrees with him and has firsthand knowledge of it. 

UPDATE: In fact you don’t need to go back to a March interview with Jake Tapper for an instance of Nunberg stating ‘Of course Don Jr would have told Trump’ he’d actually said it two days prior to yesterday’s interview-where he suddenly totally believes Trump and Jr.

Nunberg then reached out to Bertrand with this-none too plausible-qualification:

Huh?

I mean Nunberg is claiming that for routine things Jr tells his illegitimate Dad but when the subject is conspiring with a hostile foreign power for dirt on Hillary Clinton Trump was kept out of the loop?

Yep, don’t believe what you read, don’t believe what you see. 

Clearly we are not living in 2018 but have looped back through 1984.

UPDATE 3.0 Of course, Issa went the way of Russia’s favorite Congress man Dana Rohrbacher in 2018.

Sam Nunberg has gone back to criticizing Trump again arguing recently that of course Trump doesn’t want to be impeached-ok but can he talk to Speaker Pelosi?

 

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