Trump 25: Stephen King’s Next Horror Story

[fraurosena]

Another sad example.

I just cannot believe why anyone on this good Earth would willingly and wantonly want to harm children for financial gain. 

 

[Zola]

Jesus. That Dow Chemical Company's Nerve Gas Pesticide article is a mix of terrifying, disgusting, and infuriating. This is one time I've been kinda glad it's been as difficult as it has to get my son to enjoy eating vegetables.

This chemical does not discriminate. It will affect the children of the rich and the GOP as well as everyone else who eats anything it has contaminated. I don't get it, either. The only thing I can figure is $$$.

Sorry, I meant $$$. 

[WiseGirl]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Corruption at it's finest. And the GOP just looks the other way. 

Two (retiring) senators called TT out. The rest remain silent. You nailed it. 

Getting ready for tomorrow,   waiting to see if Chuck Todd is correct based on the type of lawyers Mueller hired.

[Howl]

I'm getting very, very concerned that Trump and his associates are getting ready to fire Mueller.  I truly hope that is not the news we wake up to tomorrow. 

[Rachel333]

Whew, he had a meltdown on twitter this morning. He must be worried.

[fraurosena]

 

Yep, he's really, really rattled...

 

First, he's attacking Obamacare again.
Then he doubles down on the alt-collusion stuff.
And then he's completely lost it with that last tweet, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

[apple1]

1 hour ago, Rachel333 said:

Whew, he had a meltdown on twitter this morning. He must be worried.

Probably.

It would also be helpful if POTUS got his information and made decisions based on legitimate information (e.g., intelligence briefings that he ACTUALLY read and/or listened to - this POTUS doesn't like to read, you know) -- rather than from Faux News.

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/09/01/white-house-aides-admit-uninformed-trump-information-fox-news.html

(There have been other sources and articles, over time, about Trump getting his info from Faux).

Scary. And stupid.

[Smoochie]

LOL this whole uranium 'scandal' is such a red herring for their base.  If they were so concerned over the sale of a Canadian company to a Russian entity, that passed thru 11 committees approval and can't export the uranium, why didn't they investigate it at the time?  Oh yeah, they were busy spending 10s of millions on the Benghazi and email scandals.  There's no there, there, but lets grasp anything we can, aka alternative facts or as we all know it 'fake news' to take the focus off Trump, his 'associates' and their misdeeds.   

I'm lazy but, it would be interesting to see just how much in both time and money the Republicans have spent in all the years with their investigations into Bill & Hillary Clinton to come up with absolutely nothing.  I used to think Hilary was exaggerating about the vast right wing conspiracy ... however, I truly don't get the rights absolute obsession with the two of them, it's not only scary but, very pathetic.

The Republicans are famous with their come back on every complaint about Trump, to say; he won, get over it.  My response to them is the same, don't use 'but Hilary' when you're caught doing something wrong, Trump is president and needs to answer to his own & his administration's misdeeds, get over it and own your shit!

[fraurosena]

Oh, really? 

White House lawyer: Trump tweets not a reaction to Mueller probe

Spoiler

White House lawyer Ty Cobb said Sunday the president’s tweets calling an inquiry into his ties with Russia a “witch hunt” and calling for an investigation into Hillary Clinton are not a reaction to special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe.

“His tweets today are not, as some have asked, a reaction to anything involving the special counsel with whom the White House continues to cooperate,” Cobb told NBC News.

Trump lashed out Sunday morning in a series of tweets, calling allegations that he colluded with Russia “phony.” He then called for Congress to “DO SOMETHING” about, among other things, Clinton’s ties to a dossier of unverified allegations about Trump.

Soon after, he suggested talk of the investigation into Russian interference in the election was timed intentionally to overshadow Republican efforts to push for tax reform.

CNN reported Friday that a federal grand jury has approved the first charges in Mueller’s investigation.

Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told CNN on Sunday that Mueller may look at how Trump reacts to news surrounding the special investigation as the probe continues.

Excuse me while I finish my laughing fit.... 

[onekidanddone]

14 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Excuse me while I finish my laughing fit.... 

He has the worst legal team ever.  They can't keep him quite (to be fair nobody can).. buy they never know when to SHUT UP. 

[47of74]

Michael Moore responded to the orange shit stain;

Quote

One of yesterday’s doozies was an erroneous critique of Michael Moore’s limited engagement appearance on Broadway in The Terms of My Surrender, which he characterized as closing early despite the fact that the play ran its entire scheduled run.

He had a whole series of tweets on this.  Including one where he tried to explain the concept of a limited engagement to the giant orange tapeworm of destruction. 

[onekidanddone]

21 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Michael Moore responded to the orange shit stain;

He had a whole series of tweets on this.  Including one where he tried to explain the concept of a limited engagement to the giant orange tapeworm of destruction. 

Not a huge fan of Michael Moore, but I have to give him props for this one.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump finds golf isn't the way to Congress' heart"

Spoiler

One weekend in early June, President Donald Trump tested out his golf course diplomacy with Sen. Bob Corker, making the Tennessee Republican one of his first congressional partners at his Northern Virginia country club.

The pair shared a cart and partnered up in a match that included former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning. They discussed both politics and policy – “a little of it all,” Corker recalled in an interview earlier this week – and there wasn’t much in the way of the trash talking that Trump is known for on the green.

“Honestly, it was enjoyable,” Corker told POLITICO. “You learn a lot about him personally.”

But that springtime round hasn’t stopped Corker from undercutting Trump since then, firing off a series of blistering attacks in media interviews and Twitter against a president who he characterized as in need of “adult daycare.”

Trump also didn’t have much luck with another recent golfing partner: Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul. Just days after the former 2016 GOP presidential primary rivals played at the president’s members-only Virginia golf course, Paul sided against Trump on a critical budget resolution vote that the president hopes can pave the way for a wider measure cutting taxes.

The president found some early success using golf to his advantage in office, inviting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to play with him at two of his South Florida courses in February to cement their personal relationship – a favor Abe is planning to repay by hosting a golf game when Trump visits Tokyo next weekend. But it has worked less well in Washington, where the president hasn’t been able to leverage his nearby golf club into close relationships on Capitol Hill.

Trump’s other recent golfing partner has been South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who said in an interview that his two rounds with the president over back-to-back October weekends have helped pave the way for him to be critical of the White House in a way that can ultimately advance his agenda.

“I said I want to beat you on the golf course,” Graham said in an interview. “But the best thing I can do for you is tell you what I think and be respectful about it. Here’s the one thing about playing golf, and you’re getting to know someone, you’re far less likely to take gratuitous shots because you’ve spent time with them.”

Graham hasn’t missed a beat in playing this role. He recently praised Trump for assembling a strong national security team that’s “good for the Republican party.” And after a recent visit to South Carolina together aboard Air Force One, Graham jumped at the president’s offer of a helicopter ride back to the White House.

But Graham remains a critic on one of the biggest White House sore spots: the Russia investigations. The senator a few weeks before his first golf outing with Trump issued a scathing warning to the president over the notion of firing special counsel Robert Mueller, saying it “could be the beginning of the end” of his administration. Last weekend on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Graham said Trump continues to have “a blind spot on Russia I still can’t figure out.”

Missouri GOP Sen. Roy Blunt – a member of GOP leadership who cautioned that he’s “not in the club championship ranks” of golfing ability – said it wasn’t clear whether the president’s recent overtures on the golf course have been productive in building support for Republican policies.

“I don’t think it hurts,” Blunt said. “Anything that builds relationships is generally helpful, though I’d like to see…more specific votes that respond to the investment of time.”

Trump is likely at the tail end of his weekend golf trips this year to his Washington-area course. He leaves on Friday for a 12-day, five-nation Asia trip, and he won’t have many warm weekends left in 2017 by the time he returns to the capital.

Meantime, the president’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach beckons. It will open again for the season around Halloween, and Trump has his pick of three South Florida golf courses with his name on them, including one that’s a short motorcade ride from his beach home.

Trump’s bid to connect with lawmakers through golf is limited in no small part by a lack of people who play at his level. Former House Speaker John Boehner was the last congressional leader known to seriously golf. But he retired two years ago, and the current ranks of House and Senate leadership are bare when it comes to the type of quality player Trump prefers. The field of good golfers among rank-and-file members is small, too.

“I would not call it widespread at all,” said Rep. John Yarmuth, a Kentucky Democrat who is both a member and property owner at the president’s semi-private golf club in Ireland.

By all accounts, Trump is a top-notch player. Golf Digest in January ranked him No. 1, ahead of John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Gerald Ford among the 16 most recent presidents who played the game. But his skills – and desire to keep a round moving – also can work against him when it comes to finding playing companions from the political ranks.

“It’s almost that he’s too good,” said Mike Sommers, a former Boehner chief of staff. “You can’t see him driving through the rough helping someone find their ball.”

Chris Ruddy, a Trump friend and Mar-a-Lago member, said Trump only likes golfing with people around his same skill level. “He doesn’t enjoy playing with real amateurs. He likes to move around quick. Someone who isn’t great is slower,” said Ruddy, the CEO of the conservative website Newsmax.

Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, a conservative Freedom Caucus founder, said he plays golf on some weekends back home with his brother-in-law. But he said he’d fall into the category of amateur golfer who would suggest that Trump – should he ever offer an invitation – try looking elsewhere.

“He wouldn’t enjoy playing with me because I’m nowhere near that handicap level,” Jordan said. “If the president asks you to do something you’d consider that. But I’d also tell him, ‘Mr. President, I’m not very good. You might want to play with someone else.’”

Another obstacle for Trump to forge golfing connections in Washington: his schedule. Playing as often as he does on Saturdays and Sundays doesn’t match up well with members of Congress who make it a point to go back to their states and districts on the weekends.

Sen. David Perdue, a Georgia Republican ranked by Golf Digest last year as the best golfer among members of Congress, said he had just discussed playing 18 holes with Trump when the president visited the Capitol for a GOP luncheon earlier this week.

“I’ve been invited for sure,” Perdue said. But Perdue said that finding a date in recent weeks has been challenging because of his commitments back in Georgia.

While Perdue said he expected to talk political shop when he does finally play golf with Trump, he also expected the round to be heavy on the social side.

“I’m not sure he’s using it as a tool,” Perdue said. “It’s a personal thing to do. This man has friends and uses it that way. He uses it to get relaxation. He uses it to think.”

Ruddy said he also didn’t see Trump as trying to use golf to win allies or policy converts. “The idea that somehow you get an inside track just because you play golf is just a nonstarter,” he said. “Trump uses it as a good way to understand people and hear them out.”

Trump repeatedly disparaged President Barack Obama for golfing as much as he did during eight years in office. But Trump has ended up playing even more golf than his Democratic predecessor.

In his first 40 weeks in office in 2009, Obama played 23 rounds of golf. Trump, during that same period of time this year, has played at least 32 rounds that have been confirmed by either the White House, social media reports or journalists traveling with the president. There have also been another 28 times where Trump was known to be at one of his country clubs and seen as likely playing golf, according to data compiled by the website Trump Golf Count.

Trump and Obama have also followed similar paths in eschewing fellow politicians as their playing partners. Obama often filled out his golfing foursome with longtime staffers and close friends. In fact, just 5 of the 333 rounds that the Democratic president played over his two terms were with members of Congress, according to a tally kept by CBS News reporter Mark Knoller. Obama only played golf three times with foreign leaders.

For Trump, the playing partners he’s had who have been publicly named have included longtime friends like New York real estate executive Richard Levine and professional athletes, including Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins and PGA professional Rory McIlroy.

Golf during Trump’s life prior to politics – and Washington -- was all about making money. He frequented the links with his fellow golf-obsessed Manhattan billionaires and CEOs. His name is also attached to 12 courses in the U.S., including the iconic “Blue Monster” Doral in Miami, and five more abroad in Dubai, Ireland and Scotland.

Partisanship also wasn’t a factor in who Trump teed off with. In 2012, for example, former President Bill Clinton in a CNN interview – conducted by guest host Harvey Weinstein, standing in for Piers Morgan – volunteered this about Trump: “I love playing golf with him.”

But 2012 is not 2016. And the idea of hitting the links with the president is hardly seen as a smart career move for a Trump critic – especially in the smart phone era where club members and guests frequently post video and pictures of Trump whenever he’s at one of his courses.

“I’m not sure there’s a lot of Democrats who’d want to go out and spend four hours with him,” said Yarmuth, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee and a serious golfer who plays at about the same level as the president.

Asked if he’d entertain playing golf with Trump, Yarmuth hedged. He waited nearly six years before finally getting out on a course with Obama -- at Joint Base Andrews in suburban Washington in 2015.

“That’d be a very tough call for me,” Yarmuth said. “I say it because I so cherish my one presidential golf experience. I don’t want to necessarily tarnish it. I’d like to keep it as my only presidential golf memory because it was so good.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"A cyclist flipped off Trump’s motorcade and entered the annals of presidential protests"

Spoiler

The departure of President Trump’s motorcade from his Sterling, Va., golf club on Saturday afternoon was chronicled as dutifully and minutely as the retreat of some great army.

The president left Trump National Golf Club at 3:12 p.m. after spending the day there on the edge of the Potomac River.

A thick column of black SUVs escorted Trump past two pedestrians, a Guardian reporter wrote in a pool report — “one of whom gave a thumbs down sign.”

“Then it overtook a female cyclist, wearing a white top and cycling helmet, who responded by giving the middle finger.”

The cyclist was photographed for posterity. So was an “IMPEACH” sign held aloft outside the golf club that day.

On Twitter, Voice of America reporter Steve Herman offered his account as eyewitness to the following events:

“The cyclist flipped off @POTUS a second time when the motorcade halted at the traffic light,” he wrote. “No, we do not know her name.”

Nor does anyone know if Trump, behind bulletproof windows, had seen either of the cyclist’s streetside salutes.

But with knowns and unknowns thus established, the world set about interpreting a middle finger’s significance.

Newsweek wrote, perhaps speculatively, that “to flip off the president of the United States” seemed to be the cyclist’s single-minded goal.

The Guardian avoided analysis. The Reddit commenter zablyzibly did not: “Some heroes wear bike helmets.”

Accused of polluting the record of a motorcade’s passage with details that were not, really, news, Herman defended himself. “The cyclist’s act has certainly generated an emotional reaction among many,” he wrote.

We’ll go him one better. That fleeting, vulgar indignity to the world’s most powerful person was not just news, but a historical tradition.

2001: A man throws an egg at Bill Clinton

Former president Bill Clinton had not been gone from the White House three months when, as ABC News reported, he walked out of an antique store in Poland and was hit on the arm with an egg.

“The former president took off his suit jacket and continued his walk in sunny weather for another 15 minutes, signing autographs and greeting tourists,” the station reported. Meanwhile, security forces wrestled the teenage egger to the ground.

“It was good for young people to be angry about something,” Clinton remarked, his spokeswoman later told reporters.

The Bush years: ducked shoes and flipped birds

The most memorable indignity an American president suffered in the modern era may belong to George W. Bush, whose 2008 news conference at a Baghdad palace was interrupted when an Iraqi TV reporter took his shoes off and flung them at the lectern.

“This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog,” Muntadar al-Zaidi yelled as Bush ducked the first shoe.

“This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq,” he yelled as the second shoe followed.

Like Clinton did his egging, Bush took his shoeing in good humor. “It has got to be one of the most weird moments of my presidency,” he later reflected.

He didn’t mention an incident two years earlier, in some ways no less weird.

Bush was riding in his presidential motorcade through Seattle, as Trump would do years later in Sterling. The president amused himself by waving at a fleet of school buses, full of children returning from a field trip to the zoo.

“The president was having a great time. He was waving at everybody, he waved at the kids,” Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) later recounted, according to the Associated Press.

“The sad part of it is though, we got to the last bus — and I won’t tell you which school district this was — the bus driver flipped the president off.”

Reporters soon found out the name of the school district. Despite protesting that only the president — not the children — had seen her middle finger, the bus driver was fired.

President Obama and the comforts of heckling

A few months into his presidency, Barack Obama addressed Congress, wagging his finger at U.S. senators and representatives as he spoke of his plans for immigration reform.

“The reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally,” Obama told Congress.

“You lie,” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) yelled from his seat.

“Oooooh!” exclaimed a chorus.

“It’s not true,” Obama said, and went on with his speech.

If the 44th president lacked for projectiles and obscenities, hecklers balanced out the deficit — so many hecklers that in Obama's second term he told an audience of college students, “I wouldn't feel comfortable if I didn't have at least one.”

Maybe Obama took solace in tradition. The Washington Post once traced the history presidential heckling as far back as Abraham Lincoln, who on the day before his Gettysburg Address remarked to a less-well-remembered crowd:

“In my position, it is somewhat important that I should not say any foolish things.”

And heard back this: “If you can help it.”

A century and a half later, President Trump may be less sanguine about mockery.

We don’t know if he saw the bird flip on Saturday, or what he thought of it if he did. But Trump has faced no end of jeerers at his rallies and has often shared his feelings with the crowd.

“I’d like to punch him in the face,” he said last year, for example.

No, it wasn't me. I don't have a bicycle. I have, however, flipped off Agent Orange signs.

[47of74]

3 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"A cyclist flipped off Trump’s motorcade and entered the annals of presidential protests"

  Reveal hidden contents

The departure of President Trump’s motorcade from his Sterling, Va., golf club on Saturday afternoon was chronicled as dutifully and minutely as the retreat of some great army.

The president left Trump National Golf Club at 3:12 p.m. after spending the day there on the edge of the Potomac River.

A thick column of black SUVs escorted Trump past two pedestrians, a Guardian reporter wrote in a pool report — “one of whom gave a thumbs down sign.”

“Then it overtook a female cyclist, wearing a white top and cycling helmet, who responded by giving the middle finger.”

The cyclist was photographed for posterity. So was an “IMPEACH” sign held aloft outside the golf club that day.

On Twitter, Voice of America reporter Steve Herman offered his account as eyewitness to the following events:

“The cyclist flipped off @POTUS a second time when the motorcade halted at the traffic light,” he wrote. “No, we do not know her name.”

Nor does anyone know if Trump, behind bulletproof windows, had seen either of the cyclist’s streetside salutes.

But with knowns and unknowns thus established, the world set about interpreting a middle finger’s significance.

Newsweek wrote, perhaps speculatively, that “to flip off the president of the United States” seemed to be the cyclist’s single-minded goal.

The Guardian avoided analysis. The Reddit commenter zablyzibly did not: “Some heroes wear bike helmets.”

Accused of polluting the record of a motorcade’s passage with details that were not, really, news, Herman defended himself. “The cyclist’s act has certainly generated an emotional reaction among many,” he wrote.

We’ll go him one better. That fleeting, vulgar indignity to the world’s most powerful person was not just news, but a historical tradition.

2001: A man throws an egg at Bill Clinton

Former president Bill Clinton had not been gone from the White House three months when, as ABC News reported, he walked out of an antique store in Poland and was hit on the arm with an egg.

“The former president took off his suit jacket and continued his walk in sunny weather for another 15 minutes, signing autographs and greeting tourists,” the station reported. Meanwhile, security forces wrestled the teenage egger to the ground.

“It was good for young people to be angry about something,” Clinton remarked, his spokeswoman later told reporters.

The Bush years: ducked shoes and flipped birds

The most memorable indignity an American president suffered in the modern era may belong to George W. Bush, whose 2008 news conference at a Baghdad palace was interrupted when an Iraqi TV reporter took his shoes off and flung them at the lectern.

“This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog,” Muntadar al-Zaidi yelled as Bush ducked the first shoe.

“This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq,” he yelled as the second shoe followed.

Like Clinton did his egging, Bush took his shoeing in good humor. “It has got to be one of the most weird moments of my presidency,” he later reflected.

He didn’t mention an incident two years earlier, in some ways no less weird.

Bush was riding in his presidential motorcade through Seattle, as Trump would do years later in Sterling. The president amused himself by waving at a fleet of school buses, full of children returning from a field trip to the zoo.

“The president was having a great time. He was waving at everybody, he waved at the kids,” Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) later recounted, according to the Associated Press.

“The sad part of it is though, we got to the last bus — and I won’t tell you which school district this was — the bus driver flipped the president off.”

Reporters soon found out the name of the school district. Despite protesting that only the president — not the children — had seen her middle finger, the bus driver was fired.

President Obama and the comforts of heckling

A few months into his presidency, Barack Obama addressed Congress, wagging his finger at U.S. senators and representatives as he spoke of his plans for immigration reform.

“The reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally,” Obama told Congress.

“You lie,” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) yelled from his seat.

“Oooooh!” exclaimed a chorus.

“It’s not true,” Obama said, and went on with his speech.

If the 44th president lacked for projectiles and obscenities, hecklers balanced out the deficit — so many hecklers that in Obama's second term he told an audience of college students, “I wouldn't feel comfortable if I didn't have at least one.”

Maybe Obama took solace in tradition. The Washington Post once traced the history presidential heckling as far back as Abraham Lincoln, who on the day before his Gettysburg Address remarked to a less-well-remembered crowd:

“In my position, it is somewhat important that I should not say any foolish things.”

And heard back this: “If you can help it.”

A century and a half later, President Trump may be less sanguine about mockery.

We don’t know if he saw the bird flip on Saturday, or what he thought of it if he did. But Trump has faced no end of jeerers at his rallies and has often shared his feelings with the crowd.

“I’d like to punch him in the face,” he said last year, for example.

No, it wasn't me. I don't have a bicycle. I have, however, flipped off Agent Orange signs.

Yeah me too.  Along with Branch Trumpvidians on the road, but did it in a way so they couldn't see the birdie and go nuts.

Just saw this

Quote

US President Donald Trump has launched a Twitter tirade about the "guilt" of Hillary Clinton and the opposition Democratic Party.

His Sunday morning outburst came amid reports that the first arrest in the Russian collusion inquiry would be made this week, possibly as early as Monday.

Mr Trump insisted allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russia were "phony" and a "witch hunt".

Someone on Twitter correctly pointed out to orange shit stain that he's the King of Diversion. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

@fraurosena posted the TT's tweetstorm from earlier today, during which he implored his followers to "DO SOMETHING". I love these reactions:

[VixenToast]

Do something? That alone sounds ominous. Does someone have a transcript of the TT's Twitter Tantrum? I'd like to see it in context, because him saying that to his followers is alarming. I deleted twitter months ago. Too much drama.

[GreyhoundFan]

I love Ted Lieu:

[fraurosena]

Wow. 

Swamp Things: More Than 50% of President Trump’s Nominees Have Ties to the Industries They’re Supposed to Regulate

Quote

In August 2016, energy consultant Steven Gardner gave a presentation to the trade group Professional Engineers in Mining (PDF). In it, he hammered the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement for what he said was a highly flawed regulatory process behind the office’s Stream Protection Rule, a regulation designed to prevent water pollution near coal production sites. Gardner’s firm, ECSI LLC, had been retained by a coal industry trade group “to conduct a comprehensive critical review of the proposed rule,” which it opposed.

Gardner ended his August 2016 presentation with a slide asking, “What’s next?” that featured a photo of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Contrary to the slide’s projection, Donald Trump prevailed and ended up signing legislation rolling back the Stream Protection Rule.

And last week, things came full circle when the president nominated Gardner to lead the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, the very office he had vehemently criticized on behalf of a client in the coal industry.

Environmentalists were, naturally, outraged. The Sierra Club called the idea of Gardner running a government agency that oversees mining operations “akin to hiring a wolf to guard sheep.”

But while the choice of Gardner may have been galling to the group, it was in no way surprising. In fact, it is one of the more succinct illustrations of how government is being run in the age of Trump.

Nearly a year since he won election, the president has turned federal agencies over to the private industries that they regulate. And he has done so to a degree that ethics groups say they have never witnessed.

The Daily Beast examined 341 nominations the president has made to Senate-confirmed administration positions. Of those, more than half (179) have some notable conflict of interest, according to a comprehensive review of public records. One hundred and five nominees worked in the industries that they were being tasked with regulating; 63 lobbied for, were lawyers for, or otherwise represented industry members that they were being tasked with regulating; and 11 received payments or campaign donations from members of the industry that they were being tasked with regulating.

Of the 162 nominees who didn’t have an overt conflict, 19 had either given money to or been a surrogate for Trump’s campaign (many of them ending up in ambassadorships), while 24 were career appointments or reappointments.

Of the 179 nominations with a conflict, not all proved successful. Some nominees, like Gardner, await consideration. Others, such as fast food tycoon and one-time Labor secretary hopeful Andy Puzder, had their nominations withdrawn. But many have been confirmed by the Senate and sit in positions to influence a vast array of executive policy.

“The depth of the ties of the industry is pervasive,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for the group Public Citizen. “With the Trump administration we are seeing complete regulatory capture and quite frankly it will be the defining feature of this administration.”

Asked about the administration’s routine appointments of individuals from industries they’re being tasked with regulating, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters told The Daily Beast that the administration has thoroughly followed through on President Trump’s promises to root out corruption and special interest influence in Washington.

“Following the President’s pledge to ‘drain the swamp,’ the Trump Administration has put in place historically strong lobbying restrictions for current and former Administration staff,” Walters said in an email. “Under the Trump administration, expenditures on lobbying have decreased, as firms stop finding it as profitable to try to buy influence and rig the game in their favor.”

While the Gardner nomination may personify regulatory capture under Trump, it is by no means the only or even the most remarkable instance of it within the current administration.

That honor probably goes to David Zatezalo, who was nominated to be the assistant secretary for mine safety and health at the Department of Labor. Until 2014, Zatezalo was the chief executive of Rhino Resources, a Kentucky coal company. In 2011, Rhino was faulted for the death of one of its miners, who was killed by falling rocks caused by inadequate support beams. In 2013, a subsidiary of the company was blamed for a similar accident that killed a machine operator. The agency that went after Rhino in both those instances was the Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration, the very agency Zatezalo is now in line to lead.

Though not as bold as Zatezalo’s, there are many other nominations that have shocked good government groups as particularly audacious.

Trump nominated Brendan Carr, a former telecom lawyer who represented, among others, AT&T and Verizon, to serve as a commissioner for the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecoms. He was confirmed.

Trump nominated Dana Baiocco, a lawyer who defended companies accused of selling unsafe products—like Mattel and Yamaha—to serve as a commissioner for the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Trump nominated Michael Dourson, a prominent consultant for chemical manufactures, for the job of assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention at the EPA. Dourson hasn’t been confirmed yet. But he already appears to be working at the agency, much to the confusion of Senate Democrats. Dourson has deep ties to DuPont, whose products are believed to be in a massive West Virginia warehouse fire that could spark an investigation by the agency he may soon help run.

Trump nominated Carlos Muniz, a lawyer at the Florida AG’s office, to serve as general counsel at the Department of Energy. Among the cases Muniz has argued included one defending his office’s decision not to join a lawsuit against the non-university known as Trump University.

Trump nominated Jeffrey Rosen, a lobbyist for a major airline group, to be the deputy secretary at the Department of Transportation, which will likely seek to implement the president’s proposal to privatize air traffic control. He was confirmed.

Trump nominated Paul Dabbar to be the Energy Department’s new chief scientist. Dabbar previously served as the “Head of Energy Mergers & Acquisitions at J.P. Morgan,” which he touted during his confirmation hearing. “I had the opportunity to lead energy sector investments and transactions in all 50 states and around the world,” he exclaimed.

Trump nominated David Malpass to be the undersecretary for international affairs at the Department of Treasury. In 2007, Malpass was the chief economist for investment bank Bear Stearns when a market plunge cost equity markets about $2 trillion. He characterized the drop as a “correction” and added: “Housing and debt markets are not that big a part of the U.S. economy, or of job creation. It’s more likely the economy is sturdy and will grow solidly in coming months, and perhaps years.”

After Bear Stearns collapsed during the financial crisis the following year, Malpass founded Encima Global, which advises institutional investors. He also advised Trump on financial matters during the campaign. His nomination was confirmed.

Some agencies, like the Department of Housing and Urban Development, had relatively few people nominated to its ranks with overt conflicts—just three of its nine nominees had either worked at a law firm on housing policy, advised banks on affordable housing, or served as an executive of a housing finance consulting firm.

And then there’s Trump’s nominees for the Department of Agriculture. Every single one of them is tied back to agribusiness in some form or fashion.

There is the secretary, former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, who ran a company that trades agricultural commodities globally and who served as secretary of the Georgia Agribusiness Council. There is deputy secretary, Stephen Censky, who lobbied for the soybean industry for more than two decades as CEO of the American Soybean Association. There is general counsel, Stephen Alexander Vaden, who owns farmland that relies on the USDA’s Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs—and he pledged to recuse himself from matters involving both (PDF). There is undersecretary for farm and foreign agricultural services, William Northey, who served as president and chair of the National Corn Growers Association in addition to taking nearly $400,000 in contributions from agricultural sector donors as Iowa secretary of Agriculture.

There is undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, Gregory Ibach, a family farmer who once served as president of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. There is undersecretary for research, education and economics, Sam Clovis, who has received campaign contributions from the agriculture sector in his failed run for Senate. And there is undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs, Ted McKinney, who worked for 19 years at Dow AgroSciences before heading into public service.

At his confirmation hearing, McKinney pledged to be a “happy warrior” for agriculture. He was confirmed unanimously by the Senate.

There are, generally put, two types of conflicts for those entering government. There is the kind in which donors and friends and industry bigwigs get jobs in government simply because of their name, reputation, or proximity to those in power. Betsy DeVos was a well-heeled donor whose kids never attended public school before becoming Education secretary. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson was a major Trump supporter whose top aide said he wasn’t prepared to run a federal agency. Energy Secretary Rick Perry was a prominent governor, who admitted he didn’t know what the Energy Department actually did before getting there.

While Perry has gotten donations from industry officials in the past, neither DeVos nor Carson are technically conflicted. Still, their nominations stirred controversy.

Then there is the revolving door kind of conflict, in which officials go back and forth between public service and work in the private sector—usually at lobbying shops or an industry looking to get in the administration’s good graces. In April, for instance, Marcus Peacock, a top deputy to White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, left to join the Business Roundtable, a trade association. A few months later, White House spokesman Michael Short joined another such group, the National Association of Manufacturers, and was soon spotted back at the White House at an event promoting U.S. manufacturing.

In the Trump administration, there has been a healthy mix of the two, especially at the Department of Defense.

Trump has chosen numerous people for powerful Pentagon posts whose resumes are in the military contracting world. Patrick Shanahan, for instance, was nominated and confirmed to be the Defense Department’s second in command in July. Before his Pentagon gig, he oversaw supply chain management and manufacturing for Boeing, the Pentagon’s second-largest contractor, which did more than $24 billion worth of business for the military last year alone. Ellen Lord, the head of Textron Systems, the 18th-largest defense contractor in the world, was nominated to be the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics. John Rood, Lockheed Martin International’s senior vice president, was nominated to be the undersecretary for policy.

But nominees to critical DoD positions also have had previous careers in public service prior to leaving for private practice. Trump’s third nominee for Army secretary, Mark Esper, is an executive at Raytheon. Before then, he served in the Bush administration as deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy, as well as on Capitol Hill. Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, worked for former Defense Secretary Robert Gates before leaving in 2011 to join Lockheed Martin.

Those who have studied the melding of private enterprise into U.S. military structure say that Trump has accelerated a trend that was developing long before he assumed office. And while they, and even some lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), find it troublesome, they also argue that it could be worse.

Within defense circles, it is well understood that Secretary James Mattis has submarined some potential nominees with far thinner resumes. It’s also understood that Mattis has been unable to staff his department with certain officials who were critical of Trump during the campaign.

Left with a smaller pool of potential talent, the Pentagon has turned to the private sector, where there is still expertise and people tend to be more apolitical. The nominations are logical, such as placing Bruce Jette, a military robotics promoter and the head of a Pentagon contractor, to serve as assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, technology, and logistics. But they also run risks.

“Every time a Department of Defense nominee gets named, Google gets a real workout inside the building,” said Peter Singer, a senior fellow at the think tank New America and the author of numerous books on 21st century warfare. “This is happening more than it has in the past. But these nominees are not egregious. They are certainly not as egregious as what you are seeing at other agencies. They are not the ‘holy crap, how did you think that was appropriate?’ category.”

In defending the Trump administration’s staffing decisions, industry representatives point to the expertise that private sector officials bring as precisely why they should be staffing federal agencies.

“It is Trump’s prerogative to hire people who have first-hand knowledge of how federal regulations have impacted states, industry, workers, families,” said Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, an industry funded group, in an emailed statement. “Frankly, the Trump administration could probably be reaching further into the states and industry than he already has, but at least he is attempting to look outside the swamp for help.”

Industries such as fossil fuels and financial services that felt singled out by the Obama administration see their one-time colleagues’ presence in the Trump administration as a reversion to policy informed by those it most directly affects. Obama, they say, stacked his administration with explicitly hostile officials. “Absolutely, personnel is policy,” Pyle wrote. “For eight years, the revolving door between the Obama administration and enviro lawyers, lobbyists, and activists was in full swing.”

Indeed, the revolving door between the public and private sectors, or between federal agencies and groups lobbying them, is an old and bipartisan phenomenon, and a frequent target of criticism from would-be reformers promising to shake up Washington. Chief among them is Donald Trump himself, who famously pledged to “drain the swamp” on the campaign trail and declared success on that front 100 days into his administration.

A pillar of that promise was an “ethics pledge” that Trump imposed on all administration nominees and appointees in an executive order shortly after taking office. Though weaker in many respects than a similar pledge imposed by his predecessor, Trump’s contained language designed to limit the industry-government revolving door, and implicitly acknowledged the undue influence of special interests on policymaking and regulatory processes.

But the White House then exempted wide swaths of the administration from provisions of that pledge, including every senior White House official and every former employee of the law firm Jones Day, which, in addition to representing Trump during the campaign, boasts some of the most prominent and profitable companies in the world on its client list—many of which have business before the U.S. government.

Good government groups have harshly criticized the president for abandoning the swamp-cleaning posture he ran on, though they never gave it much credence to begin with. But they also are conflicted about it. Are there cases, the question goes, where a bit of corruption is a necessary trade-off for a dose of competence? And if so, to what end?

Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, noted that the nominations Trump has made to Department of Justice have a similar quality: strong ties to corporate clients and serious resumes.

“Unlike in other parts of the government these are highly credentialed, conflicted people within the revolving door,” he explained. “That’s different than whatever the heck is going on at EPA or Energy, which are clusterfucks. This is a scandal along the lines of what normally makes people angry at D.C. It is less esoteric. But in some ways it is more dangerous because Department of Justice could clean up some of the errors made by other parts of the government.”

Trump is not unique, Hauser and others regretfully noted, in his reliance on people from private practice to fill government posts. Where he is unique is in the extent to which he is turning to individuals with no real previous government expertise for those posts.

“While some of the president’s nominees are nontraditional,” noted Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, “they are merely from a neighboring swamp and we’re in for years of the same old problems brought on by senior officials coming and going through the revolving door.”

Shortly before this article posted news broke that another set of nominations were announced (too late to include in our review). Among those listed was Scott Mugno, the vice president of safety, sustainability, and vehicle maintenance at FedEx Ground, who was the president’s choice to serve as assistant secretary of Labor at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

 

[Rachel333]

Manafort has been told to surrender! Trump is tweeting about Obama.

[GreyhoundFan]

5 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Wow. 

Swamp Things: More Than 50% of President Trump’s Nominees Have Ties to the Industries They’re Supposed to Regulate

 

I would have thought it was 100% in this dumpster fire of an administration.

[VelociRapture]

On 10/29/2017 at 6:06 AM, fraurosena said:

Another sad example.

I just cannot believe why anyone on this good Earth would willingly and wantonly want to harm children for financial gain. 

 

Uhhh... can we back up to this for a second? How the FUCK am I supposed to protect my baby from this shit?!?! 

[GrumpyGran]

On 10/29/2017 at 5:05 AM, fraurosena said:

When someone speaks like this, how can you not think there is something seriously wrong with his mental capacities?

I mean, yes, he's a moron... but, seriously, his speach patterns are not those of someone with all their marbles neatly in a row.

Yikes, embedded in the tweet responses was that video of him trying to kiss Tiffany. She was literally like "Yeah, don't touch me, creepy ATM machine."

[fraurosena]

Meanwhile, in other uplifting news:

 

[onekidanddone]

1 minute ago, fraurosena said:

Meanwhile, in other uplifting news:

 

Trump: I'll see them in court SAD!