Jump to content
IGNORED

Donald Trump and his Coterie of the Craven (part 16)


Destiny

Recommended Posts

Ehh Melania still a racist. Also forever disgusted with Trump forever being turned on by his daughter. Again you'd think with that in addition to many other things could have been a turn off for voters but nope!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 476
  • Created
  • Last Reply

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/25/opinions/imagine-if-hillary-owned-mar-a-lago-filipovic/index.html

Quote

It's getting to be an almost laughable refrain, repeated whenever our current President garbles his interviews, insults a foreign leader, disregards norms of either politics or polite human behavior, or uses his position to enrich himself or his family: "Imagine if Hillary Clinton did that."

The latest example might be the most egregious. In a now-removed post, the State Department touted Trump's private Mar-a-Lago club as "the winter White House," advertising the place's history and violating ethics rules in the process.

Of course, Trump himself has used his position to line his pockets by way of the club -- membership dues doubled to $200,000 the year after his election, and he's spent a quarter of his first 100 days at Mar-a-Lago (with travel costs and extra security costing American taxpayers million of dollars).

By contrast, Hillary Clinton was questioned unrelentingly about her involvement in her family's global health charity, an organization that brought HIV/AIDS treatment, sustainable farming initiatives, malaria prevention and other relief to millions. The organization had her hobnobbing with some of the world's most powerful people; the ethical concern was that a donation to the charity might be seen as pay-for-play, currying favor with the would-be second President Clinton. Mrs. Clinton's involvement in the organization was one part of what made her "crooked Hillary," according to Trump.

Apparently working your relationships to get AIDS treatment to kids is an unacceptable ethical breach, but using your position as the sitting president to funnel money back to yourself -- well, that's just good business in Trump's world.

The rules are simply different for Trump. He flouts them so flagrantly, lies so relentlessly, and seems to have no emotional capacity for shame or intellectual capacity to process what he's done wrong, making him incredibly hard to nail down. Indeed, the forever problem with Trump is simply that his misdeeds and errors and scandals are so numerous it's impossible to keep up, or to keep the media watchdog eye trained on just one.

Politicians and journalists could obsess over Benghazi or the Clinton Foundation or emails because they fit an agreed-upon narrative, and they were individual stories, each limited in scope. And Hillary, a typical political animal, responded: hit her enough and she'll try to shape-shift, apologize, please the public, all to get the media to give her a fair shake.

Trump? He just gives journalists the finger. We shrug, take it, and continue to play whack-a-mole, chasing the story of the day.

Imagine if Clinton not only owned a private club, but used it to enrich herself. Journalists and politicians alike would be crowing -- and rightly. Trump is so crooked, and such a huckster, we're used to it. Taking the promotional page down from the State Department website was "enough." What a pathetic shift in norms -- in what is considered acceptable behavior of the President of the United States.

Candidate Clinton was hammered for trying to do some good in the world. Meanwhile Trump is golfing on a property he owns, rubbing shoulders with the global elite willing to pay to have access to the President, even as his administration is crafting a plan to end foreign aid as we know it -- gutting programs that help vulnerable people in developing countries.

Cutting help to the world's poorest people while fattening his own wallet. Aren't we all glad we focused our ire on the Clinton Foundation?

Found something new to mutter under my breath, so I can stop cursing so much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Forgive me if this has been posted already: "Trump boasts of highest TV ratings since ‘the World Trade Center came down’"

Quote

Donald Trump has long been television ratings gold, and, even as president, he has kept his eye squarely on the small screen as a gauge of his popularity, a barometer for his governing agenda and his ability to dominate the airwaves, as The Washington Post's Ashley Parker and Robert Costa reported Monday.

Now, in an interview with the Associated Press released Sunday, Trump set a new standard of hubris even for himself — comparing his ratings prowess to one of the darkest days in U.S. history: Sept. 11, 2001.

“It's the highest for 'Face the Nation' or as I call it, 'Deface the Nation,' " Trump told the AP's Julie Pace, referring to the CBS News Sunday political talk show. “It's the highest for 'Deface the Nation' since the World Trade Center — since the World Trade Center came down.”

Trump said he helped the CBS Sunday morning political talk show score 5.2 million viewers, although it was not clear which appearance he was referring to. Trump's appearance in January 2016 registered 4.6 million viewers, according to TV Newser. His subsequent appearances on “Face the Nation” during the campaign last year got lower ratings, including after a Republican primary debate in February 2016.

As a New York real estate promoter, Trump certainly would have had a unique perspective on the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the twin towers. But his choice of using that moment, considered one of the most-filmed events in history at a time of emerging technology, as a measuring stick could strike many as tin-eared and inappropriate.

Trump made the comparison during a long, boastful interview in which he touted his ability to bring viewers. He said he scored 9.2 million viewers on Fox News when he spoke to anchor Chris Wallace last fall.

“It had 9.2 million people,” Trump said. “It's the highest they've ever had.”

At the same time, Trump used the opportunity to denounce, as he has repeatedly, the press corps again as “fake media” that treats him “very unfairly.” Trump, who has elected to skip the White House correspondents' dinner Saturday, has announced that he will hold a campaign rally in Harrisburg, Pa., to mark his 100th day in office on the same evening, in a bit of counterprogramming.

Some of the media, Trump said, “bears no relationship to the truth.”

Still, the president can't quite quit the mainstream press that he has so long been obsessed with. The White House announced that Trump will grant an exclusive interview to “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson to mark his 100th day, set to air this weekend.

...

No, Agent Orange, YOU bear "no relationship to the truth". What a freaking tool. And, how nauseating, to use the September 11 attack coverage as a yardstick for your ego stroking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Trump changes course on child-care benefit after criticism he would mainly help well-off families"

Quote

The White House is pursuing a new approach to providing relief for families burdened by child-care costs after receiving criticism that a campaign proposal would have done little to help working-class families while providing disproportionate benefits to well-off parents.

The Trump administration is now looking to bolster the Child and Dependent Care Credit, which allows working parents to slice a maximum of $2,100 from their tax bill for spending on child care, according to a senior administration official.

The centerpiece of Trump’s earlier approach would have allowed parents to deduct the average cost of child care from their income taxes, a strategy that would have benefited families with a high level of income. Lower-income families often don’t have a federal income tax burden and so wouldn’t have received much of a benefit under the plan. The campaign also proposed child-care spending rebates through the Earned Income Tax Credit, a tax credit for the working poor, which would have been capped at $1,200 per family. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center had estimated that 70 percent of Trump’s child-care plan would flow to families earning more than $100,000 a year.

...

Now, the administration is focusing on the Child and Dependent Care Credit. A senior administration official said the White House is looking to increase the value of the credit, while limiting how much higher-income parents can benefit from the tax credit. The administration is also considering proposing making the tax credit refundable, which would allow lower-income families to benefit from it even if they pay minimal or no federal income tax.

Senior officials are also considering the creation of child- and eldercare savings accounts, with additional benefits for low-income households. Further details were not available. The Trump administration will also push for legislation that incentivizes on-site child care and take steps to ease regulations to allow more child-care operations.

Word of the efforts come as Trump plans to announce Wednesday principles for a broad overhaul of the tax code. Those principles were not expected to discuss proposed changes to child-care tax credits in any detail.

The senior administration official said the Treasury Department is running “point” on this process, and there is also a team within the White House that is working on women’s economic and family issues. Ivanka Trump, the first daughter who this month became assistant to the president, has been pushing the effort on Capitol Hill.

The financial burden of child care widely across the country. In Alabama, for example, the average cost of infant care annually is about $5,500, while parents in D.C. typically shell out $22,000.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"White House unveils dramatic plan to overhaul tax code in major test for Trump"

Quote

President Trump on Wednesday proposed a dramatic overhaul of the tax code, calling for sharply lower rates for individuals and businesses but also eliminating key tax breaks.

The proposal is an outline – key details are left unfinished – but it presents an initial offer to begin negotiations with lawmakers, as White House officials believe reworking the tax code is one of their biggest priorities to boost economic growth.

“We have a once in a generation opportunity to do something big and important on taxes,” White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn said Wednesday.

White House officials are ambitious, but the path to overhauling the tax code is riddled with political landmines. Many budget experts believe the White House’s plan would reduce federal revenues by so much that it would grow the debt by trillions of dollars in the next decade, growing interest costs and slowing the economy.

And Trump’s advisers are looking to axe some tax breaks that are very popular in certain states, including the deduction Americans take for the state and local taxes they pay separately each year. Eliminating this deduction could save more than $1 trillion over 10 years, but inflame lawmakers and governors in states that have high income tax rates.

The central feature of the White House’s plan would be a big reduction in tax rates for virtually all Americans and businesses.

It would eliminate the seven existing income tax brackets and replace them with three brackets, containing new rates of 10 percent, 25 percent, and 35 percent, based on someone’s income. White House officials haven’t specified which income levels would hit the higher tax brackets, as they see that as part of ongoing discussions with Capitol Hill.

It would also roughly double the standard deduction that Americans can use to reduce their taxable income. The deduction for married couples would move from $12,600 to $24,000. This would incentivize people not to itemize their tax returns and instead use the standard deduction, simplifying the process and potentially saving taxpayers thousands of dollars each year.

The White House plan would eliminate the alternative-minimum tax and the estate tax, provisions that raise billions of dollars each year but have long been the target of Republicans seeking to rip up the tax code. Cohn, speaking of the AMT, said “we don’t think that people should have to do their taxes twice,” and added that the estate tax unfairly prevented

In order to offset some of the cost of the lower rates, Trump administration officials said they were proposing to eliminate virtually all tax deductions that Americans claim, provisions that they argued primarily benefited wealthier Americans. Cohn said they would preserve tax breaks that incentivize home ownership, retirement savings, and charitable giving. But almost all others would be jettisoned.

This includes the tax deduction people can claim for the state and local taxes they pay each calendar year. These taxes can be particularly high in states with higher income taxes, such as California and New York.

“It’s not the federal government’s job to be subsidizing the states,” Mnuchin told reporters at the briefing with Cohn. “It’s the state’s independent decision as to do what they want to tax.”

Some of the White House’s tax changes would benefit the wealthy, such as the elimination of the estate tax, while other changes would benefit the middle class and lower-income Americans.

For businesses, Trump’s proposal would lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, and it would also allow smaller businesses, structured in such a way that they are affected by the individual tax rate, to also use the 15 percent threshold. There are millions of these businesses, known as “S Corporations,” and they are often small, family-owned firms.

But they can also include large law firms and lobbying shops. Mnuchin said special protections would be put in place to ensure that the 15 percent rate isn’t taken advantage of by the wealthiest earners, though he didn’t say how the White House would do this.

The White House is also proposing a one-time tax “holiday” to incentivize companies to bring several trillion dollars currently being held in other countries back into the United States. They didn’t specify what that tax rate would be, saying its currently part of negotiations on Capitol Hill, but they believed providing this incentive would bring money back for investment and hiring.

“We expect that trillions of dollars will come back on shore and will be reinvested here in the United States, for capital goods and job creation,” Mnuchin said.

This process is called “repatriation.” It’s controversial, because critics allege the money is brought back and then paid out in dividends to shareholders, not used for hiring. But Democrats and Republicans have both been open to the idea of a tax holiday. The Obama administration proposed using one to bring money back into the United States that could be used for new infrastructure projects, for example.

A key part of Trump’s tax plan during the campaign was to levy a tax or tariff against companies that move overseas and then try to sell their products back to American consumers. Cohn and Mnuchin said they were still looking at alternatives on how to structure this idea, and it was not an element of the plan rolled out on Wednesday. They said they found a plan embraced by House Republican leaders – known as a border adjustment tax – to be unworkable in its current form, but they are going to work with key lawmakers to see if adjustments can be made, Mnuchin said.

He also said White House officials were hopeful that their plan could win support from Democrats, but he said they were willing to forge ahead without them if necessary. They could use a special budget process known as reconciliation to pass the changes through the Senate with a simple majority vote, though this would be very difficult given how sharp they are planning to cut taxes. Mnuchin also said their goal was to make permanent changes to the tax code, but they would consider a shorter-term change if necessary to win political support.

...

Ahead of the announcement, some Democrats were skeptical. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), said members of his party would scrutinize the details, but he predicted the package could amount to major tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and for businesses like those formerly run by President Trump.

“That’s not tax reform,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “That’s just a tax giveaway to the very, very wealthy that will explode the deficit.”

Speaking Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill, Ryan called Trump’s framework “a critical step forward in this effort.”

...

The trouble Trump has is that while his administration says the tax cuts will over time pay for themselves, Congress’s nonpartisan budgetary referees at the Joint Committee on Taxation won’t work off that same assumption.

Because of the rules of the Senate, legislation that would result in more borrowing over the long term would be vulnerable to a Democratic filibuster, requiring 60 senators to advance the legislation. Republicans hold just 52 seats in the chamber, and absent those 60 votes, Trump and his fellow Republicans would only be able to pass cuts that would last for 10 years.

After that time, the tax cuts would expire unless Congress takes action, setting up another fight over taxes.

So, they would eliminate the AMT, which is the only reason Agent Orange paid taxes in the one year we've gotten to see. What a surprise. As for me, I live in a state that has high taxes, so being able to deduct that has been very helpful. I'm not happy if they take it away. Off to call my representatives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"White House unveils dramatic plan to overhaul tax code in major test for Trump"

So, they would eliminate the AMT, which is the only reason Agent Orange paid taxes in the one year we've gotten to see. What a surprise. As for me, I live in a state that has high taxes, so being able to deduct that has been very helpful. I'm not happy if they take it away. Off to call my representatives.

Looks like those with student loans will also get shafted. No longer being able to deduct the interest, or at least part of the interest paid each year, is going to hurt a lot of average people.  :pb_sad:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

Looks like those with student loans will also get shafted. No longer being able to deduct the interest, or at least part of the interest paid each year, is going to hurt a lot of average people.  :pb_sad:

Exactly. This article outlines the proposal in easy to understand terms.  Basically, the rich get richer and a few tiny morsels get thrown at the rest of us. In other words, no big surprise.

 

 

This was interesting: "After crowdsourced investigation, Trump inaugural committee admits there were errors in its donor list"

Quote

President Trump's inaugural committee has acknowledged that it made errors in a list of donors that it submitted to the Federal Election Commission, according to a report published Tuesday by HuffPost.

That admission followed an unusual crowdsourced reporting project, in which HuffPost reporter Christina Wilkie asked the public to examine more than 1,500 listings of individual donors and their addresses. That effort — along with others from other news organizations — seemed to turn up more than 300 examples where the data seemed not to match reality.

In one case, flagged by the Intercept, a $25,000 donation seemed to be mistakenly attributed to NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, one of the subjects of the movie “Hidden Figures.” In another, spotted by Wilkie's volunteers, an address came from a nonexistent person listed as living in a vacant lot in New Jersey.

Inaugural committee spokesman Alex Stroman told HuffPost that both of those listings were in error. He said the committee would update its report.

“We plan to amend our report to reflect any changes that we have become aware of, including many of those donor records or technical glitches that we have recently become aware of, as is common practice with FEC reporting,” Stroman said, according to HuffPost.

Stroman did not respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post on Tuesday.

...

Last Thursday, the day after the FEC data was released, Wilkie posted a Google spreadsheet with 1,500 entries — one for each donation that the inaugural committee listed.

The data was “scraped” from Trump inaugural committee filings and put into spreadsheet form by Post data journalist Steven Rich and Andrew Ba Tran of the Connecticut Mirror.

“Let's get digging,” Wilkie wrote on Twitter.

Wilkie asked her Twitter followers to choose individual donations and seek to learn the story behind them. Did the name and address match a real person? If the donor was a shell company, who was behind it? Was the donor a person or company who might lobby the federal government?

Wilkie's effort drew in 1,000 volunteers. She deputized a smaller team, about 20 volunteers, to sift through incoming comments and put them into the spreadsheet.

In about 340 cases, Wilkie said, this volunteer effort found indications that the inaugural committee's data might be wrong.

About 300 of the errors seemed to follow a common pattern: an incoming donation from one person was credited to another.

The likely reason, Wilkie discovered, was a system of digital access codes set up by the Republican Party that allowed people to buy inaugural ball tickets in another person's name. The access codes were mailed to Trump supporters after the election, offering them a chance to buy the tickets.

It worked like this, Wilkie wrote: “The access codes, mailed out in early January, entitled recipients to buy tickets, at $50 each, to the larger of Trump’s two inaugural balls. Within days, a secondary market for the access codes had sprung up, with some people asking their friends for codes, and others buying them on eBay.”

But, Wilkie found, the inaugural committee credited all tickets bought with one person's access code as “donations” from the person to whom the code was mailed.

There were other errors, seemingly unrelated to the ticketing system.

As Wilkie wrote, “that includes a donation of $25,000 that appeared to have been made in the name of Katherine Johnson, a former NASA mathematician who was a character in the biopic 'Hidden Figures.' The listing included an address at NASA headquarters, from which Johnson has been retired for decades. After the donation was first reported by the Intercept, Johnson’s family quickly denied that Johnson had ever made such a donation.”

Stroman told the HuffPost that this address was wrong, and the money actually came from another person.

...

Paul Seamus Ryan, a campaign-finance expert with the group Common Cause, said that none of these errors revealed so far seemed to indicate major malfeasance.

But Ryan said they indicated sloppiness on the part of the inaugural committee.

“It looks like negligence to me,” Ryan said. “They have the expertise within the Trump team to do this right if they wanted to do this right, if doing this right was a priority. Clearly, getting this right is not a priority.”

Sloppy...par for the course

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As expected, Trump signed the executive order to review National Monuments created in the last twenty years.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-order-broad-review-national-monuments-123433131.html

 

Quote

Trump's order is part of an effort to reverse many of the environmental protections implemented by his predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama that Trump said were hobbling economic growth. Trump's agenda is being cheered by industry but enraging conservationists.

Legal challenges are expected because no president has ever rescinded a monument designation.

 

I'd recommend clicking on the link for the whole article, as my phone is really obnoxious when I try to quote from another source on it.

 

The worst thing is, since this is an executive order, our Representatives can't do anything about it.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found this interesting: "Trump’s first 100 days, in your words". I can't quote, but it's fascinating to see how often certain phrases are repeated, sometimes very differently.

 

"Sanctuary cities ruling: When a judge quotes Sean Spicer, it’s not a good sign for the White House"

Quote

When a long list of comments from President Trump, his surrogates and his spokesmen shows up in a federal court ruling, it’s fair to say it can only mean one thing: a constitutionally questionable executive order is about to get a judicial smackdown.

That was true in March, when federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland suspended Trump’s travel ban, saying the administration had showed a clear animus toward Muslims, despite government lawyers’ claims to the contrary.

And it was true Tuesday, when U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick of California temporarily froze Trump’s executive order on sanctuary cities, ruling that a case could be made that it violated the Constitution.

Trump’s order, signed Jan. 25, threatens to cut off funding from local governments that refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities. Santa Clara County and the city of San Francisco challenged the order, arguing, among other things, that the president doesn’t have the power to withhold federal money. Orrick found the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on all their claims, as The Washington Post reported.

The 49-page ruling focused largely on an all-too-familiar theme for the young administration: the consequences of bragging and bluster by Trump and top administration officials.

Just like the judges who ruled on Trump’s travel ban, Orrick homed in on the vast discrepancies between what government lawyers defending the sanctuary cities order argued in court and what administration officials said about it in public.

In court, the government tried to make the case that the order doesn’t actually do anything, at least not at the moment, because the administration has yet to define what exactly a sanctuary city is or threaten any particular jurisdiction with a loss of funds. It was their way of convincing the judge to toss out the lawsuit on the grounds that no city or county has yet suffered any harm.

But in public, administration officials boasted about how the order would force sanctuary cities to their knees, singling out particular places.  The order described in court as essentially an empty shell was portrayed in news conferences, briefings and television interviews as a powerful tool to protect the public from dangerous undocumented immigrants being shielded by wayward cities and counties.

It was that gap that disturbed Orrick.

In his ruling, the judge pointed to a February interview between Trump and former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, in which Trump called the order “a weapon” to use against cities that tried to defy his immigration policies.

“I don’t want to defund anybody. I want to give them the money they need to properly operate as a city or a state,” Trump said in the interview. “If they’re going to have sanctuary cities, we may have to do that. Certainly that would be a weapon.”

...

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"All the times Trump personally attacked judges — and why his tirades are ‘worse than wrong’"

Quote

Dealing with another legal blow that blocked another executive order this week, President Trump did something familiar.

He attacked the judiciary. Again. And ever so aggressively.

A White House statement Tuesday about a federal district judge's ruling on Trump's executive order on “sanctuary cities” did not mince words. It emphasized — more than once — that the judge who just ruled against the administration is not an elected official.

“The San Francisco judge's erroneous ruling is a gift to the criminal gang and cartel element in our country, empowering the worst kind of human trafficking and sex trafficking, and putting thousands of innocent lives at risk,” the statement said. “This case is yet one more example of egregious overreach by a single, unelected district judge.”

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick in San Francisco blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funding from “sanctuary” jurisdictions — cities or towns that refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities.

The tweet storm from the president came early the following day, when Trump lashed out at the wrong court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which he said had issued a “ridiculous” ruling.

The 9th Circuit had previously ruled against Trump's original travel ban barring citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries and refugees from entering the United States. But the ruling on “sanctuary cities” was issued by the U.S. District Court for California's Northern District. The federal appellate court, however, is likely to hear an appeal on Orrick's ruling.

Trump vowed to take the case to the country's highest court.

“I'm never surprised at the 9th Circuit,” the president said Wednesday when asked about the ruling halting his sanctuary-city order, again referring to the wrong court. “As I said, we'll see them in the Supreme Court.”

...

Charles Geyh, an Indiana University law professor with expertise on judicial conduct and ethics, said Trump is sending a dangerous message in his latest attack on the judiciary: “As the leader of the free world, I should be able to do what I choose. The court shouldn't be able to get involved.”

Geyh said that attitude shows a lack of understanding of the equal roles of the three branches of government, specifically of the judiciary's job to serve as a check on the executive branch.

“Presidents have disagreed with court rulings all the time. What's unusual is he's essentially challenging the legitimacy of the court's role. And he's doing that without any reference to applicable law,” Geyh told The Washington Post. “That they are blocking his order is all the evidence he needs that they are exceeding their authority.”

“That's worse than wrong,” Geyh added. “One some level, that's dangerous.”

Trump has largely lost in legal battles over his administration's immigration policies. And with almost each unfavorable ruling, Trump has responded aggressively.

...

I swear, I wish someone would deactivate the toddler's Twitter account.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is so true. Sad, but true: "Trump’s greatest single achievement almost never gets mentioned"

Quote

In the outpouring of commentary on President Trump’s first 100 days in office, his greatest single achievement is almost never mentioned, which is itself a sign of what a major triumph it is: We are not talking much about whether Russia colluded with Trump’s campaign to help elect him.

Our distraction was not inevitable. Recall that just a little over a month ago, FBI Director James B. Comey told the House Intelligence Committee that the bureau was investigating possible cooperation between Trump’s team and Russia’s hacking and disinformation campaign to undercut Hillary Clinton. As the New York Times wrote, Comey’s testimony “created a treacherous political moment for Mr. Trump.” Yet the president slipped by.

In mid-February, the administration should have come under sustained inquiry when Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, was forced to resign because he misled White House officials about the nature of his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States.

Flynn, who had led the Republican National Convention in “Lock her up!” chants against Clinton, turned out to have received $65,000 from companies linked to Russia and $600,000 to lobby for the Turkish government, even as he was advising Trump. And, as Politico reported this week, the man who paid Flynn to work for Turkey had business ties to Russia.

The episode raised a slew of questions, not the least being what Vice President Pence, whom we presume was vetting administration appointees, knew about Flynn’s activities. As for Trump, he believes in “extreme vetting” for immigrants, but apparently not for members of his administration. Unless, of course, he was fully aware of what Flynn was up to.

The Flynn story is obviously heating up again, but let’s pause to ponder how Trump’s genius at evasion, diversion and prevarication helped him to keep the Russia story at bay. It should disturb us more than it seemingly has that the 100th day of Trump’s presidency on April 29 will also mark the beginning of the ninth week since Trump sent out his March 4 tweet-to-end-all-tweets charging that “Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory.”

...

I couldn’t agree more, but guess what? Trump’s gambit worked. First, Trump’s lieutenants got Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, involved in a Keystone Kops routine at the White House in which Nunes kind of, sort of suggested he had information giving support to Trump’s claim, which he didn’t. Nunes eventually had to recuse himself from the committee’s investigation of Russian interference, but the whole episode may have fatally wounded — and certainly delayed — its inquiry.

And there is this core Trump principle: A lie is as good as the truth as long as you can get your base to believe it. And sure enough, the new Post-ABC News poll conducted last week found that 52 percent of Republicans believe that “the Obama administration intentionally spied on Trump and members of his campaign during the 2016 election campaign.” This should keep Trump going for a while.

Fortunately, as John Adams taught us, facts are stubborn things, and the Russia story cannot be suppressed forever. Indeed, there was progress on Tuesday when — in a display of bipartisanship that is truly astounding at this moment — Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) of the House Oversight Committee jointly asserted that Flynn may have violated the law by not fully disclosing his Russian business dealings when seeking a security clearance.

At least as significant, both also expressed alarm at the White House’s refusal to turn over any documents on Flynn’s hiring and firing. There may be limits to Trump’s cagey sorcery.

But it’s still pretty impressive. Given the substantive emptiness of Trump’s presidency so far, his greatest achievement is that he is still standing there, making pronouncements as if he means them and moving noisily but without any clear plan from one thing to the next. Every day he can postpone his reckoning with Russia is a victory.

Note to self: place calls to my senators and representative tomorrow morning to express displeasure that the Russia situation keeps getting put on the back burner. I will be reminding them that if HIllary had won and there had been even a single sentence suggesting her campaign colluded with Russia, Chappass, Nunes, and their ilk would have kidnapped her and driven her to a prison without a hearing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see fuckhead wants to break up the 9th circuit now;

thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/330757-trump-says-hes-absolutely-considering-breaking-up-court-that-blocked

Quote

President Trump is considering breaking up the 9th Circuit Court after a federal district court judge in its jurisdiction blocked his order to withhold funding from "sanctuary cities."

In a Wednesday interview with the Washington Examiner, Trump said "there are many people who want to break up the 9th Circuit. It's outrageous."

In the interview, Trump accused liberals of "judge-shopping" for a court that would strike down his executive order.

"I mean, the language on the ban, it reads so easy that a reasonably good student in the first grade will fully understand it. And they don't even mention the words in their rejection on the ban," Trump said.

What a fuckhead. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My new favourite surname: Humpty Trumpty. I wish the wall will be fatal for the orange egg!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

As expected, Trump signed the executive order to review National Monuments created in the last twenty years

This makes me so sad. I try to find hope, but often I think that it will take  a very, very, very long time to recover from Agent Orange and the GOP of Doom. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/25/2017 at 9:32 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

Interesting article: "Inside the Trump Marriage: Melania’s Burden"

The picture (in the article)  of Agent Orange, Melania, and Ivanka from 2004 is stomach-turning. Agent Orange is hugging and kissing Ivanka while turned away from Melania. Blech.

Wow, what a sad life.  Belittled and obviously not loved by her husband, a life that revolves around looking good, and no empathy for anyone else on the planet.  A truly shallow existence.  One of her own making, so I don't feel sorry for her at all.  This just confirms my observations that there isn't much to Melania Trump.  So very different than Michelle.  I really miss the Obamas.

And yeah, she's never moving to D.C.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Warning: Hodgepodge post.

"...evasion, diversion and prevarication." Yes.

I remember posting on FJ many months ago that if DT lost the election, I was predicting a divorce from Melania within 6 months. Who knows now... maybe separate living will replace that until he is impeached.

I certainly am not complaining about the lack of accomplishments by DT. (As I also said before) I have never hoped so much that any person would fail to accomplish his or her promises.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, 47of74 said:

I see fuckhead wants to break up the 9th circuit now;

thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/330757-trump-says-hes-absolutely-considering-breaking-up-court-that-blocked

What a fuckhead. 

The WaPo had an article about this where he calls it the "9th Circus".  Oh yeah, because his administration is so smooth and professional. And, as far as "judge shopping", it's been done by the Repubs as well.

 

1 hour ago, Childless said:

Wow, what a sad life.  Belittled and obviously not loved by her husband, a life that revolves around looking good, and no empathy for anyone else on the planet.  A truly shallow existence.  One of her own making, so I don't feel sorry for her at all.  This just confirms my observations that there isn't much to Melania Trump.  So very different than Michelle.  I really miss the Obamas.

And yeah, she's never moving to D.C.

If her husband wasn't screwing up the world, I'd just shrug and say she was an adult who made a business decision to live a life of luxury, and the humiliation that comes from his crap is the payment. I'm betting she and Baron will move to Washington for the summer and then back to NYC for the next school year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The WaPo had an article about this where he calls it the "9th Circus".  Oh yeah, because his administration is so smooth and professional. And, as far as "judge shopping", it's been done by the Repubs as well.

Yeah, I know Lord Dampnuts has less than 1/2 the attention span of a insect high on meth, but a law professor should sit him down and explain how the Federal court system works.  In terms that a first grader could understand since that's apparently the level that Lord Dampnuts  reads at.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's Bring Your Child To Work Day.  I wonder if the president will be bringing any of his children to work today?  You know, show them around the office, let them make Xerox copies of their hand, take them to lunch.  That kind of thing.  Because there's a First Daughter who is woefully out of the loop.

https://www.aol.com/article/entertainment/2017/04/21/tiffany-trump-party-bella-thorne/22049585/

Who knew there was a "Snap Pack"?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Yeah, I know Lord Dampnuts has less than 1/2 the attention span of a insect high on meth, but a law professor should sit him down and explain how the Federal court system works.  In terms that a first grader could understand since that's apparently the level that Lord Dampnuts  reads at.   

LOL, I agree about the attention span. Sadly, he'll never understand the concept of checks and balances. He's used to being a dictator.

 

"From ‘build that wall’ to kick the can: Trump’s border promise might be hard to break"

Quote

Rush Limbaugh and listeners of his conservative radio show were not happy with reports this week that President Trump was, as Limbaugh put it, “caving on his demand for a measly $1 billion in the budget for his wall on the border with Mexico.”

Tim from Detroit called in to say he’s worried Trump will “kick this can down the road” like any other politician. Ray from Chattanooga, Tenn., wished he could tell Trump: “Be the man we elected you to be.”

And John from Polk City, Fla., added: “Number one, build the wall. Every time he spoke: Build a wall. I’m afraid he’s starting to dip his foot into the swamp. And, boy, I just don’t want to see that happen.”

In his bumpy first three months in office, Trump has reversed himself on campaign promises now seen as impractical or unnecessary, from repealing and replacing Obamacare in a single day to labeling China as a currency manipulator.

But Trump’s promise to build an “impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful southern border wall” paid for by Mexico was special. It was his most vivid campaign promise, and its proposed height grew with every obstacle thrown in Trump’s way, from naysayers saying it wasn’t possible to the Mexican government saying it wouldn’t foot the bill. The most popular chant at campaign rallies became “Build that wall!”

Failing to quickly follow through on a wall carries real political risks for Trump, whose success is due in large part to his embrace of hard-line positions on immigration. There is also peril for fellow Republicans — who have been split for years on how the United States should reform its immigration system — in not taking the idea of the wall seriously enough.

...

To Trump, the wall is a concrete symbol of his commitment to cracking down on illegal immigration. To many lawmakers, it’s a fantastical joke that they have to carefully navigate.

Since Trump took office, many lawmakers have been trying to steer him toward more practical solutions for the border involving fencing, increased border patrols and technology. They argue that constructing a wall would cost tens of billions, still wouldn’t solve many of the country’s border problems and could create whole new challenges as well.

...

“What I hope he means is that we should be talking about establishing operational control . . . I’m not saying necessarily walls,” said Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), a centrist who at times has been openly critical of Trump.

Meanwhile, Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), a Trump ally, took the president at his word: “It’s a physical wall. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about that.”

Others have been left guessing.

“I’m not an interpreter — you’ve got to ask them what they mean. I mean, that’s their initiative, obviously. I take it he’s taking about border security in general,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

For Trump, and for many of the voters who helped propel him to victory, there should be no misunderstanding.

“The wall’s going to get built, folks. In case anybody has any questions, the wall is going to get built,” Trump told reporters during the signing of an executive order related to agriculture Tuesday. “I watch these shows, and the pundits in the morning, they don’t know what they’re talking about. The wall gets built, 100 percent.”

Maybe Marco isn't an interpreter, but I can interpret things: Agent Orange is an idiot and a liar, and his followers are delusional.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lord Dampnuts said there are no plans to pull out of NAFTA at this time;

http://wapo.st/2pm3K0W

Quote

President Trump told the leaders of Canada and Mexico on Wednesday that the United States would not be pulling out of the North American Free Trade Agreement “at this time,” opening the door to future negotiations on the same day that Trump was considering signaling a strong intent to withdraw as a potential way of bringing the parties to the dealmaking table.

The title of this article got me thinking about how this world would be a much better place if certain individuals had pulled out about 70 years ago, if you catch my drift. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Destiny locked this topic

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.



×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.