Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty-four. Sunrise is 5:32 AM and sunset 8:29 PM, for 14h 57m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 26.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Unified School District’s Citizens Financial Advisory Committee meets at 6 PM, and the Whitewater Common Council at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1955, Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California.
Recommended for reading in full —
The Committee to Investigate Russia ably captures the reaction to the Trump-Putin summit in a post entitled Shock, Outrage, and Disgust:
UPDATE: Putin was pleased with Trump’s performance.
Career intelligence officers, Democrats, and Republicans weigh in on President Trump’s stunning appearance alongside Vladimir Putin during which the president of the United States sided with the Russian authoritarian over his own intelligence officials and attacked both Democrats and the FBI.
While the reaction is overwhelmingly negative, some Republicans still refuse to take a strong stance against President Trump, with at least a couple defending him.
Former CIA Director:
Former Acting CIA Director and CIR Advisory Board member:
Former FBI Agent and CIR Advisory Board member:
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia and CIR Advisory Board member Evelyn Farkas:
….
Senate Minority Leader:
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC):
“The Senate Intelligence Committee has reviewed the 2017 IC assessment and found no reason to doubt its conclusion that President Putin ordered an influence campaign aimed at the 2016 U.S. elections with the goal of undermining faith in our democratic process. Russia has conducted a coordinated cyberattack on state election systems, and hacked critical infrastructure. They have used social media to sow chaos and discord in our society. They have beaten and harassed U.S. diplomats and violated anti-proliferation treaties. Any statement by Vladimir Putin contrary to these facts is a lie and should be recognized as one by the President.
“Vladimir Putin is not our friend and never has been. Nor does he want to be our friend. His regime’s actions prove it. We must make clear that the United States will not tolerate hostile Russian activities against us or our allies.”
Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman:
House Intelligence Committee‘s top Democrat:
Senator John McCain (R-AZ):
McCain’s full statement:
“Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory. The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate. But it is clear that the summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake.
“President Trump proved not only unable, but unwilling to stand up to Putin. He and Putin seemed to be speaking from the same script as the president made a conscious choice to defend a tyrant against the fair questions of a free press, and to grant Putin an uncontested platform to spew propaganda and lies to the world.
“It is tempting to describe the press conference as a pathetic rout – as an illustration of the perils of under-preparation and inexperience. But these were not the errant tweets of a novice politician. These were the deliberate choices of a president who seems determined to realize his delusions of a warm relationship with Putin’s regime without any regard for the true nature of his rule, his violent disregard for the sovereignty of his neighbors, his complicity in the slaughter of the Syrian people, his violation of international treaties, and his assault on democratic institutions throughout the world.
“Coming close on the heels of President Trump’s bombastic and erratic conduct towards our closest friends and allies in Brussels and Britain, today’s press conference marks a recent low point in the history of the American Presidency. That the president was attended in Helsinki by a team of competent and patriotic advisors makes his blunders and capitulations all the more painful and inexplicable.
“No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant. Not only did President Trump fail to speak the truth about an adversary; but speaking for America to the world, our president failed to defend all that makes us who we are—a republic of free people dedicated to the cause of liberty at home and abroad. American presidents must be the champions of that cause if it is to succeed. Americans are waiting and hoping for President Trump to embrace that sacred responsibility. One can only hope they are not waiting totally in vain.”
Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT):
Senator Bob Corker (R-TN):
….
Current Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats issued the following statement:
- Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE): “This is bizarre and flat-out wrong. The United States is not to blame. America wants a good relationship with the Russian people but Vladimir Putin and his thugs are responsible for Soviet-style aggression. When the President plays these moral equivalence games, he gives Putin a propaganda win he desperately needs.”
- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “Missed opportunity by President Trump to firmly hold Russia accountable for 2016 meddling and deliver a strong warning regarding future elections. This answer by President Trump will be seen by Russia as a sign of weakness and create far more problems than it solves. … if it were me, I’d check the soccer ball [that Putin gave Trump] for listening devices and never allow it in the White House.”
- Rep. Pete King (R-NY): “[I] strongly disagree” with Trump’s statement that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election. “[I’m] disappointed, not flabbergasted.” King added that having Russia cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller “would be like bringing ISIS into a joint terrorism task force.”
- Fox Business host Neil Cavuto: “That’s what made his performance disgusting. I’m sorry its the way I feel. It’s not a right or left thing, it’s just wrong. A U.S. president on foreign soil talking to our biggest enemy, or adversary, or competitor … is essentially letting the guy get away with this and not even offering a mild criticism, that set’s us back a lot.”
Former intel chiefs condemn Trump’s news conference with Putin (CNN)
Top Republicans in Congress break with Trump over Putin comments (CNN)
What they’re saying: Trump blasted after press conference with Putin (Axios)
(It’s not sadness, though, that will change any of this; it’s a righteous anger that will send Trumpism into a political outer darkness.)
Astronomers Just Discovered 12 NEW Moons Around Jupiter:
Some day yesterday, eh??
Trump outed himself. He is loud and proud. It was an amazing performance. If nothing else he also made it real for the Republican party. They now can’t dance around the question most directly put by the late, great, Bo Diddley and well-covered by Geo. Thorogood: “Who do you love?”
We are starting to find out… The Wisco Kid rose up from his torpor, and took time off from cleaning out his desk, to say he didn’t approve. There is zero chance of him advancing to actually doing something. Newt offered some cluck-clucks, but McCain came out blazing away like Kim Jong Un wasting his uncle with a 20mm AA gun. McCain has been focused as of late, not surprisingly. His time is short, and he has nothing to lose, so he is taking care of his legacy. Could his legacy include leaving the Republican Party?
The whole Putin thing had a whiff of Trump doing some sort of “Suicide by Cop” ploy. He had to know there was no chance of it going over well, and he was guaranteed to get a mountain of brown, steaming, shit dumped on him. Is he trying to get removed from office? The Republican party that has long fancied itself as “patriots” now has a choice. Are they really patriots, or are they enablers of a Russian takeover of the US government? The choice is stark and they better work up some good answers to the question, as it will be asked at every political event until November. Political Armageddon is peeping over the horizon for the GOP.
The big question is “What is Trump up to?”. There is ample evidence of Kompromat of some sort, and Trump is behaving suspiciously like it is really big. I doubt that it is the piss-tape. Trump would be proud of that, and would just laff it off as frat-boy fun. It is becoming very clear that the Russians were not doing some low-level meddling, but rather actually delivered the election to Trump. A fair number of the Republican Brahmins, such as the Wisco-Kid, were likely in on it. Ryan retiring to “Spend some Family” time is the lamest excuse in politics for getting caught doing something nefarious.
Speaking of nefarious…The NRA has turned from touting hunter safety to openly advocating for the armed overthrow of the US government, and is being actively aided by the Russians in doing so. They stand credibly accused of laundering $15M of Russian money for the Trump campaign. The Russian “Gun Honey”, Maria Butina, that got popped yesterday has some interesting connections to Wisco-World. Pix of her hobnobbing with Walker are circulating around the intertubes.
We are going to find out soon enough what is going on. Mueller, if the last fusillade of indictments is any indication, has the technical wherewithal to have all of the docs he needs to flatten Trump and a lot of his more ardent enablers. The situation is uncontrollably approaching critical mass.
This summer is just starting to get hot…
It was a day…
Here we are: “Trump outed himself. He is loud and proud.” If Trump had been an unwitting participant in a Kremlin plan, he’d be able to turn on Putin to bolster his (Trump’s) supposed fear of seeming illegitimately elected. But he was not an unwitting participant – he was an active one, publicly begging for Russian help, arranging any number of now-discovered meetings, and likely all of it as a Russian catspaw.
There are still some risible journalists who contend that Trump acts as he does from insecurity. No, and no again: he acts out of complicity, collaboration, and the subservience of a compromised man.
Russian state media are right about this, if nothing else: they do own Trump.
To our knowledge, Putin has yet to demand his price, and it seems unlikely that the price would be mere public shuffling and scraping. He must want, and expect, more even beyond the humiliation of America before the world.
Ryan will soon go, to collect his millions in lobbyist earnings for billions in corporate welfare delivered. It’s infuriating to watch him now, having appeased every bad thing that ever walked or crawled through Washington.
I much doubt, as you doubt, that Trump fears a sex tape, any bit more than a pig fears being called dirty.
About the heat, oh yes: one often finds that August is hotter than July.