Black Tuesday — Cohen accuses Trump of criminal conspiracy as prosecutors move in for the kill

[jserraglio]

WAPO
by Dan Balz

ANALYSIS

No day during President Trump’s 19 months in office could prove as dangerous or debilitating as Tuesday. Everything that happened in a pair of courtrooms hundreds of miles apart strengthened the hand of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and weakened that of the president of the United States.
This was a day when truth overran tweets, when facts overwhelmed bald assertions. Presidential tweets, however provocative, eventually disappear into the ether. Tuesday’s convictions could send two people who have had close relationships with Trump to prison for several years, while one of them brought the investigation to the doorstep of the White House.
What took place Tuesday will ratchet up the pressure on the president, will embolden his critics, and will no doubt inflame and rally his supporters. If the past months have seemed increasingly hot, the coming months could be hotter still — there’s little doubt that the Trump presidency has now entered more treacherous territory, and no one can know where it will end.
Trump has tried everything to discredit Mueller’s now wide-ranging investigation. He has blasted it as a witch hunt, called special counsel’s team thugs, sought to make the operation into a purely partisan exercise. He has complained that Mueller has strayed far from his original mandate to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. This month, the attacks escalated from volleys into a barrage, often multiple times a day.
On Tuesday, legal actions dropped with resounding force as a counter. By far the bigger blow for the president came in New York, where Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime former lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty to tax fraud and campaign finance violations, including trying to buy the silence of two women whose stories he feared could influence the 2016 election.
In making that plea, Cohen implicated Trump in the campaign finance violation, saying he acted at the direction of a federal candidate — namely Trump. What evidence exists to corroborate Cohen’s statement will await future legal developments and the public relations war that will intensify.
In Virginia, Paul Manafort, the president’s onetime campaign chairman, was convicted on eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud. A mistrial was declared on 10 other counts. None of the criminal activity related to Trump’s 2016 campaign, but the convictions robbed the president and his team of any hope that the jury in Virginia would deliver a setback to Mueller’s team. Instead, it did the opposite.
Tuesday’s legal thunderclaps laid bare the vulnerability now facing the president. He and his lawyer, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, have waged a relentless public relations war against Mueller, while fencing over whether the president would agree to speak with Mueller’s prosecutors about his knowledge of the events under investigation.
Giuliani has been no help to the president. Either by ignorance or design, he has tried so many lines of attack against the Mueller team that he has ended up contradicting himself, misstating the facts and been forced to explain away statements such as the one he made Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “truth is not truth.” Mueller’s team has continued its methodical pursuit of what constitutes that truth to the best of anyone’s ability to find it.
The attacks against Cohen came after a public embrace by the president and others. That embrace, of course, came before it was clear that Cohen, who once said he would take a bullet for Trump, began to cooperate with prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, after they scooped up a mountain of his documents and began to make clear just how many years in prison he could face for tax fraud and other violations.
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Since then, Giuliani has been even more relentless in attempting to discredit Cohen, calling him a liar and much worse, in television appearances that proved to be no substitute for serious lawyering and a stout legal defense.
Cohen’s stunning plea deal reset the table, and not in a way that the president can easily explain away. From claiming not to know about Cohen’s payments to buy the silence of women who have alleged affairs with Trump to acknowledging that the president repaid Cohen for those payments, the story now has put Trump at the center of the decisions to do so, and in what prosecutors say is a violation of campaign finance laws.
The president’s first reaction to Tuesday’s events came late in the afternoon, as he was arriving in West Virginia for a campaign-style rally. He called Manafort a good man, expressed disappointment that his former campaign chairman had been swept up in the Mueller investigation, and repeated his assertion that Mueller and his team are engaged in a witch hunt. “No collusion,” he said again.
As for Cohen, he said nothing, an omission that blared out more loudly than his defense of Manafort and his denunciation of Mueller’s work. Giuliani issued a statement asserting that there was no allegation of wrongdoing by the president in the charges against Cohen, a narrow reading of what took place in the courtroom in New York.
The Cohen conviction dealt another blow to the credibility of a president who frequently says whatever he wants, regardless of its accuracy, to advance his interests. But this one could have far greater implications than some of the president’s other false claims. Prosecutors will decide how far to pursue this. Politicians will be asked what, if anything, they should do as well.
The Manafort conviction adds another layer to the mounting evidence that Trump has not, as he claimed, surrounded himself with “the best people.” His White House has been a personnel shambles, with comings and goings at a record pace and with some far from the quality the president claimed.
His first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Others have left in disgrace for their misdeeds. Meanwhile, Omarosa Manigault Newman, who was dismissed from the White House months ago, has been airing embarrassing audiotapes as she promotes a tell-all of her days as a White House staffer. Her credibility is minimal. That she was hired at all is the real concern.
On Tuesday, as the legal news was breaking, The Washington Post’s Robert Costa reported that White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow hosted Peter Brimelow, the publisher of a website that promotes white nationalism, at a party at his home last weekend. This came after a White House speechwriter was let go for having appeared with Brimelow in 2016.
That speaks to the culture that has been created. Tuesday’s developments speak even louder. They are concrete but not definitive. The president is dug in, feeling aggrieved by an investigation he believes was corrupted from the start, and he has gone off the rails since it fell into Mueller’s hands. He has options, including attempting to shut down the inquiry, although he has been warned repeatedly of the consequences of doing so.
Mueller will continue to move forward, at a pace of his own choosing. Justice Department guidelines probably will inhibit him from doing anything dramatic in the early fall, ahead of the midterm elections. Whether more shoes will drop before Labor Day, only he knows. One way or another, the president faces many more months of uncertainty.
Dan Balz is chief correspondent at The Washington Post. He has served as the paper’s deputy national editor, political editor, White House correspondent and Southwest correspondent.
Democracy Dies in Darkness
© 1996-2018 The Washington Post

[living_stradivarius]

Which campaign finance laws are involved? It'd be nice if they were more specific so we know how deep this goes.

[lennygoran]

Which campaign finance laws are involved? It'd be nice if they were more specific so we know how deep this goes.

By William K. Rashbaum, Maggie Haberman, Ben Protess and Jim Rutenberg

Aug. 21, 2018



Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, made the extraordinary admission in court on Tuesday that Mr. Trump had directed him to arrange payments to two women during the 2016 campaign to keep them from speaking publicly about affairs they said they had with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Cohen acknowledged the illegal payments while pleading guilty to breaking campaign finance laws and other charges, a litany of crimes that revealed both his shadowy involvement in Mr. Trump’s circle and his own corrupt business dealings.

He told a judge in United States District Court in Manhattan that the payments to the women were made “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” implicating the president in a federal crime.

“I participated in this conduct, which on my part took place in Manhattan, for the principal purpose of influencing the election” for president in 2016, Mr. Cohen said.

The plea represented a pivotal moment in the investigation into the president, and the scene in the Manhattan courtroom was striking. Mr. Cohen, a longtime lawyer for Mr. Trump — and loyal confidant — described in plain-spoken language how Mr. Trump worked with him to cover up a potential sex scandal that Mr. Trump feared would endanger his rising candidacy.


Mr. Cohen also pleaded guilty to multiple counts of tax evasion and a single count of bank fraud, capping a monthslong investigation by Manhattan federal prosecutors who examined his personal business dealings and his role in helping to arrange the financial deals with women connected to Mr. Trump.

The plea came shortly before another blow to the president: His former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was convicted in his financial fraud trial in Virginia. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, had built a case that Mr. Manafort hid millions of dollars in foreign accounts to evade taxes and lied to banks to obtain millions of dollars in loans.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers have, for months, said privately that they considered Mr. Cohen’s case to be potentially more problematic for the president than the investigation by the special counsel.

But Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, said in a statement after Mr. Cohen’s plea, “There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government’s charges against Mr. Cohen.”

In federal court in Manhattan, Mr. Cohen made the admission about Mr. Trump’s role in the payments to the women — an adult film actress and a former Playboy playmate — as he pleaded guilty to two campaign finance crimes.

One of those charges stemmed from a $130,000 payment he made to the actress, Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

Prosecutors said that Trump Organization executives were involved in reimbursing Mr. Cohen for that payment, accepting his phony invoices that listed it as a legal expense. The other charge concerned a complicated arrangement in which a tabloid bought the rights to the story about the former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, then killed it.

[The scene inside the courtroom: “I had a glass of Glenlivet 12 on the rocks,” Mr. Cohen said when asked whether he had taken medication or alcohol in the last 24 hours.]

Mr. Cohen’s plea was announced by Robert Khuzami, the deputy United States attorney, along with senior officials from the F.B.I. and the Internal Revenue Service. Addressing reporters outside the courthouse, Mr. Khuzami said that Mr. Cohen had “decided that he was above the law, and for that, he is going to pay a very, very serious price.”

The plea agreement does not call for Mr. Cohen to cooperate with federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Still, it does not preclude him from providing information to them later or to the special counsel, who is examining the Trump campaign’s possible involvement in Russia’s interference in the 2016 campaign.


If Mr. Cohen were to substantially assist the special counsel’s investigation, Mr. Mueller could recommend a reduction in his sentence.

Mr. Cohen had been the president’s longtime fixer, handling some of his most sensitive personal matters over a decade at the Trump Organization. He once said he would take a bullet for Mr. Trump.

As Mr. Cohen addressed the judge, admitting to the crimes he had committed, the packed courtroom remained silent. Even when Mr. Cohen made obvious references to Mr. Trump, referring to him as “the candidate” and “a candidate for federal office,” spectators seemed to listen raptly, with no gasps or audible reactions.

Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to five counts of tax evasion for concealing more than $4 million in personal income from 2012 to 2016 and to one count of bank fraud, for failing to disclose $14 million in debts in an application for a $500,000 home equity line of credit — the source of his payment to Ms. Clifford.

He also pleaded guilty to making an excessive campaign contribution and causing an unlawful corporate contribution during the 2016 election cycle.

He will be sentenced on Dec. 12 before Judge William H. Pauley III. Though Mr. Cohen faces a maximum of 65 years in prison, the plea agreement provides for a far more lenient sentence: The government calculated the sentencing guidelines at from 51 to 63 months and the defense put them at 46 to 57 months. A final guidelines determination will be made by the Probation Department, but the ultimate sentence will be determined by Judge Pauley.

Mr. Cohen’s attorney, Lanny J. Davis, said Mr. Cohen had put his family and country ahead of his loyalty to Mr. Trump.

“He stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election,” Mr. Davis said. “If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?”

Looming over the negotiations between prosecutors and Mr. Cohen has been the possibility of a presidential pardon. Mr. Trump reached out to Mr. Cohen by phone a few days after the F.B.I. raids, and they had dinner together a month earlier in March, at Mr. Trump’s private club in Florida, Mar-a-Lago.

Mr. Cohen’s lawyer had loosely raised the issue of a pardon with an attorney for Mr. Trump several months ago, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations.

By striking a deal with Mr. Cohen that includes prison time, federal authorities were aware of the risk that the president might pardon him, said another person briefed on the matter. But it is also possible that Mr. Cohen could eventually cooperate.

Prosecutors charged that Mr. Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Ms. Clifford was effectively a donation to Mr. Trump’s campaign, because by securing her silence it improved his electoral fortunes, and thus violated 2016 campaign finance law prohibitions against donations of more than $2,700 in a general election.

Mr. Cohen also pleaded guilty to “causing” an illegal corporate donation to Mr. Trump through his involvement in a $150,000 payment American Media Inc. made to Ms. McDougal in late summer 2016 to buy the rights to her story, effectively securing her silence for the remainder of the campaign.

Corporations are prohibited from coordinating political spending with candidates or their representatives. Mr. Cohen signed papers a month later to purchase the rights to her agreement from A.M.I., but the publisher backed out of the deal at the last minute.

The prosecutors filled in several blanks in a story that has been unfolding for months about the lengths to which Mr. Cohen went during the campaign to help his boss stave off embarrassing news about alleged affairs ahead of Election Day.


Prosecutors left little doubt that A.M.I. Inc., owner of The National Enquirer, became a de facto campaign proxy for Mr. Cohen in his efforts on behalf of Mr. Trump.

According to court papers, the publisher agreed in August 2015, months before the first primaries, to look out for damaging stories about Mr. Trump and his alleged affairs with women during talks with Mr. Cohen and “one or more” members of Mr. Trump’s campaign.

The tabloid company agreed to identify those stories “so they could be purchased and their publication avoided,” the prosecutors said on Tuesday — an inverted role for a tabloid scandal sheet such as The Enquirer, which went on to savage Mr. Trump’s opponents while promoting and protecting him.

That deal led to the arrangement with Ms. McDougal, which was struck in August 2016. It only came together, prosecutors said, after Mr. Cohen promised A.M.I. it would be reimbursed for the McDougal payment.

But prosecutors also reported for the first time that A.M.I. was intimately involved in the arrangement with Ms. Clifford. The tabloid connected Mr. Cohen with the lawyer who had negotiated the McDougal contract, Keith Davidson. Mr. Davidson also had Ms. Clifford as a client and later hashed out the agreement for Ms. Clifford’s silence.

Prosecutors said in court papers that when Mr. Cohen initially failed to finalize the deal, an editor at A.M.I. — a likely reference to Dylan Howard, the company’s chief content officer — alerted Mr. Cohen that there was a risk that Ms. Clifford would sell her story to another media company, one that would publish it.

Mr. Cohen’s admission that he broke the law by paying off Ms. Clifford was a remarkable turnaround from the legal and publicity battle that he and his lawyers had waged against her. Ms. Clifford and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, have hounded Mr. Cohen since May, taunting him on social media and predicting his indictment.

Mr. Cohen’s lawyers frequently fired back, accusing Mr. Avenatti of “fanning a media storm” and of “smearing” Mr. Cohen in a relentless series of televised appearances.

“I predicted this a long time ago before the warrants were even executed,” Mr. Avenatti said on Tuesday. “We feel extremely vindicated.”

Mr. Cohen’s plea culminates a long-running inquiry that became publicly known in April when F.B.I. agents armed with search warrants raided his office, apartment and hotel room, hauling away reams of documents, including pieces of paper salvaged from a shredder, and millions of electronic files contained on a series of cellphones, iPads and computers.

Lawyers for Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump spent the next four months working with a court-appointed special master to review the documents and data files to determine whether any of the materials were subject to attorney-client privilege and should not be made available to the government.

The special master, Barbara S. Jones, who completed her review last week, issued a series of reports in recent months, finding that only a fraction of the materials were privileged and the rest could be provided to prosecutors for their investigation.

On Monday, the judge overseeing the review, Kimba M. Wood of Federal District Court in Manhattan, issued an order adopting Ms. Jones’s findings and ending the review process.

It was unclear on Tuesday what role the materials that Ms. Jones reviewed, which were made available to prosecutors on a rolling basis, may have had in the charges against Mr. Cohen.

One collateral effect of Mr. Cohen’s plea agreement is that it may allow Mr. Avenatti, Ms. Clifford’s lawyer, to proceed with a deposition of Mr. Trump in a lawsuit that Ms. Clifford filed accusing the president of breaking a nondisclosure agreement concerning their affair.

The lawsuit had been stayed by a judge pending the resolution of Mr. Cohen’s criminal case. Mr. Avenatti wrote on Twitter on Tuesday that he would now seek to force Mr. Trump to testify “under oath about what he knew, when he knew it and what he did about it.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/nyre ... trump.html

[lennygoran]

Pecker, that safe, keep this stuff coming-Nixon, I mean Trump has got to be nervous! Regards, Len

Omarosa On Report That Trump Wants Her Arrested: I’m Not Afraid Of Nixon, Er, Trump

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ ... mean-trump

[living_stradivarius]

Unless there's some concrete Russia connection here this will probably just go in circles the same way Ken Starr went with Clinton.
Speaking of which: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/22/us/p ... eport.html

[lennygoran]

Unless there's some concrete Russia connection

Hope they'll find one-Trump begs Russia to find Hillary's emails and on the same weekend they do it-collusion, cooperation, obstruction, immorality, bullying, criminality with finance law, just being a liar-first the Dems have to get back the House! Regards, Len

[jserraglio]

Betting Odds Swing Against Trump Post 'Black Tuesday'
https://www.oddsshark.com/entertainment ... ting-props

The day after Paul Manafort was found guilty on eight charges and Michael Cohen implicated the president in orchestrating multiple “hush money” cover-ups, there are new odds on whether Donald Trump will be impeached before the 2020 presidential election.

Manafort, a former campaign chairman for Trump, and Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer,” both find themselves in the custody of federal authorities. The question now becomes how the Democrats will take this information and how they will act in the wake of the newest information.

MyBookie has released odds on Donald Trump being impeached by the House of Representatives, and this time there’s a twist: for many books that have released odds on impeachment, there was only a Yes bet available; MyBookie will allow you to bet Yes (+300) or No (-500).

BetOnline has also released odds on Trump “Leaving the Presidency via Impeachment,” with Yes at +150 and No at -200. This is slightly different than actually being impeached – think charged vs guilty.

OddsShark will keep you updated on changes in the betting lines and any other props that open up as this latest political saga unfolds.

WILL DONALD TRUMP BE IMPEACHED BEFORE THE 2020 ELECTION?
Odds as of August 22 at MyBookie

Yes: +300
No: -500

WILL DONALD TRUMP LEAVE OFFICE VIA IMPEACHMENT?
Odds as of August 22 at BetOnline

Yes: +150
No: -200

[living_stradivarius]

Odds as of August 22 at MyBookie

Yes: +300
No: -500

WILL DONALD TRUMP LEAVE OFFICE VIA IMPEACHMENT?
Odds as of August 22 at BetOnline

Yes: +150
No: -200

Stock market didn't flinch at all, so big money doesn't really seem to care.

[jserraglio]

To the contrary. The market's actually up this week at the prospect of the inevitable departure of the Lord of Misrule and Laughingstock-in-Chief.

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over... Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule.

[living_stradivarius]

To the contrary. The market's actually up this week at the prospect of the inevitable departure of the Lord of Misrule and Laughingstock-in-Chief.

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over... Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule.

Big money would sell the market if they took this media frenzy seriously. They aren't. Up we go.

[jserraglio]

The NASDAQ and S&P hit all-time highs today. Already discounted for media frenzy, largely Trump Twitter excretions anyway.

Market bottom line = deregulation c/w political stability. Likely to see even more of that under POTUS PENCE than LOTUS TRUMP*. Consequently, the markets are bullish.

*LOTUS – Laughingstock of the United States

[living_stradivarius]

I disagree. And in the end, without anything concrete on Russia none of this will amount to anything. The people who got him elected don't give a crap about MSM's nonstop coverage of what he does in bed with a porn star. Sure prosecutors will try to weave it into some kind of legal issue with campaign finance because of the hush money, just as they tried to weave Bill Clinton's lying under oath as some kind of major legal issue to warrant impeachment. We're likely to see the same circus amount to nothing again. I'd put money on it.

[jserraglio]

After this week, Trump's fall is likelier than ever. His dicking around with porn queens, Playboy centerfolds and housemaids is the least of it.

You see, the Donald is more of a 'Dick' than a 'Bill' — With Bill, lying about what humidor he squirrelled away his cigars in was all there was; but Dick's 2-bit burglary was eventually shown to be part and parcel of a conspiracy to subvert the Constitution.

No, Donald's serious offenses against the Republic likelier smack of a Dick, than a Bill.

There'll be plenty of concrete evidence of the Donald's perfidy before this 'circus' of his own devising de-tents, and the name Donald Trump may eventually efface Benedict Arnold's as a byword for treason.

And if Mueller concludes (as John Brennan apparently already has) that the evidence points to Trump's being a 'Manchurian candidate', he may straight up ask the DOJ to indict him while still in office.

As Trump likes to say whenever he is on the verge of scapegoating one of his cronies: "We'll see what happens."

The real question, as Mr. Brennan also has hinted, is whether or not we have already embarked on a long prelude to what will eventually result in a civil war.

[lennygoran]

There'll be plenty of concrete evidence of the Donald's perfidy before this 'circus' of his own devising de-tents, and the name Donald Trump may eventually efface Benedict Arnold's as a byword for treason. And if Mueller concludes (as John Brennan apparently already has) that the evidence points to Trump's being a 'Manchurian candidate', he may straight up ask the DOJ to indict him while still in office.<

Yeah that's my conclusion too-too bad the path to kicking him out is so problematic in both the House and of course the Senate. Regards, Len

[living_stradivarius]

There'll be plenty of concrete evidence of the Donald's perfidy before this 'circus' of his own devising de-tents, and the name Donald Trump may eventually efface Benedict Arnold's as a byword for treason. And if Mueller concludes (as John Brennan apparently already has) that the evidence points to Trump's being a 'Manchurian candidate', he may straight up ask the DOJ to indict him while still in office.<

Yeah that's my conclusion too-too bad the path to kicking him out is so problematic in both the House and of course the Senate. Regards, Len

I wonder why that is? Oh yes, because MSM has, time and again, completely ignored and underestimated the power the Trump constituency has over Congress. They won't give a damn about the porn star nonsense, so no, this is not going to be like what happened to Nixon.

[lennygoran]

Oh yes, because MSM has, time and again, completely ignored and underestimated the power the Trump constituency has over Congress. They won't give a damn about the porn star nonsense, so no, this is not going to be like what happened to Nixon.

It hasn't been ignored at all-it's just unfortunate but very lucky for Trump. Trump is much worse than Nixon-he colluded, conspired and stole an election. Len

[living_stradivarius]

Oh yes, because MSM has, time and again, completely ignored and underestimated the power the Trump constituency has over Congress. They won't give a damn about the porn star nonsense, so no, this is not going to be like what happened to Nixon.

It hasn't been ignored at all-it's just unfortunate but very lucky for Trump. Trump is much worse than Nixon-he colluded, conspired and stole an election. Len

I'm of the opinion that the people who voted for him would have done so regardless. They should be much more worried about his constituency than about him.

[jserraglio]

The nation'll soon be rid of the tyrant.

P.S. Barring war in the streets, he'll go before 2020.

[lennygoran]

I'm of the opinion that the people who voted for him would have done so regardless. They should be much more worried about his constituency than about him.

Yes I'm someone who walks on 5th Ave quite a lot-that's where he can shoot people and get away with it. Please don't tell him about me! Regards, Len

[living_stradivarius]

The nation'll soon be rid of the tyrant.

P.S. Barring war in the streets, he'll go before 2020.

Going to be more realistic and say that's not going to happen (both).

[lennygoran]

The nation'll soon be rid of the tyrant.

Maybe but will he be hung upside down like Mussolini was when they finally got rid of him? Regards, Len

[jserraglio]

Realism be damned. Here the people rule.

[lennygoran]

Realism be damned. Here the people rule.

Joe, if only that was fully true. Gerrymandering, lobbying, the electoral college, citizens united. Regards, Len

"Population vs. Electoral Votes

The apportionment of electoral votes is based on the congressional representation for each state, meaning that each congressional seat equals an electoral vote. Since the House of Representatives is set at 435 seats and the Senate currently has 100 members, changes in electoral votes with every 10-year census are often very minute. Therefore, the number of people per electoral vote in one state is very different than the number of people per electoral vote in another.

Below is a list of states along with their populations, number of electoral votes, and a percentage that demonstrates the relative value of a vote cast in that state compared to the national average For example, in 2008, on average a state is awarded one electoral vote for every 565,166 people. However, Wyoming has three electoral votes and only 532,668 citizens (as of 2008 estimates). As a result each of Wyoming's three electoral votes corresponds to 177,556 people. Understood in one way, these people have 3.18 times as much clout in the Electoral College as an average American, or 318% (as listed in the pdf chart, downloadable below).

2008 Population vs. Electors, State-by-State information (pdf, 60.5kb)

http://www.fairvote.org/population_vs_electoral_votes

[jserraglio]

Joe, if only that was fully true. Gerrymandering, lobbying, the electoral college, citizens united.

We strive for a "more perfect union" even though we always fall short of that ideal. Preferable to Trumpista post-fascism or latter-day political defeatism which calls itself 'realism'.

[living_stradivarius]

Joe, if only that was fully true. Gerrymandering, lobbying, the electoral college, citizens united.

We strive for a "more perfect union" even though we always fall short of that ideal. Preferable to Trumpista post-fascism or latter-day political defeatism which calls itself 'realism'.

And what are you doing with said idealism to make a difference? Posting on the internet? MSM has consumed your time and energy to make you think you're actually changing something while all you wind up doing is consuming more media content. Effective action starts with realism. Acknowledge the strengths of your adversaries rather than being completely out of touch with the people who think differently. MSM thinks Trump's impeachment is a slam dunk home run? They thought they same about Hillary's victory.

The people who strove for a more perfect union actually did something worthy. Anyhow, I'm just here to try to pull people out of this media hubbub. Take a look around you, and the people you haven't talked to outside of your normal social circles. Do something. Annnd that's all the time I'll devote to this matter. Ciao.

[lennygoran]

We strive for a "more perfect union" even though we always fall short of that ideal. Preferable to Trumpista post-fascism or latter-day political defeatism which calls itself 'realism'.

Agree-sure hope Avenatti can quickly depose Cohen and Trump now that we know about the safe, Pecker and AMI! Regards, Len

[jserraglio]

Acknowledge the strengths of your adversaries rather than being completely out of touch with the people who think differently . . . . Take a look around you, and the people you haven't talked to outside of your normal social circles. Do something.

Repetitive, vacuous hectoring.