Trump 31: Parody of a Presidency

[laPapessaGiovanna]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

What can they possibly hope to gain by these "look I'm a big boy bully-tactics", other than the ridicule of the rest of the world and a possible decent in to war because Iran now has an excuse?

Iran didn't need an excuse, the US did. Remember: war against Iran has been Bolton's wet dream for how long? And suddenly he is in a position of power, with the means to work to fulfil it. Trump has chosen his war. I just hope the Congress won't let him start it.

[fraurosena]

6 minutes ago, Howl said:

Yeah, Trump is moron.  

Yep. He's the bigliest of morons. And I bet you in his frenzy to get rid of yet another Obama era legacy he didn't even realize this would be one of the consequences either.

 

5 minutes ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

Trump has chosen his war. I just hope the Congress won't let him start it.

Congress? What Congress? There is no Congress in the US right now that is willing to do anything that goes against the presiduncial wishes.

The US really, really, really, needs that blue wave come November. And I really, really, really hope it won't be too late by then.

[WiseGirl]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

 he didn't even realize this would be one of the consequences either

Why would he start thinking about consequences now? After all, what consequences has he received from this charade of a Congress?  I feel like I'm witnessing  the beginning of the Republic of Gilead or any dystopian type society. 

[Howl]

heh! There is already speculation on who is going to play Michael Avenatti in the movie.  Hmmm, Stormy can play herself. 

[Howl]

Ooopsie: 

 

[Gobsmacked]

Please come back, even just for a little while President Obama. Please. 

Isn't it wonderful to read a properly worded statement that makes sense, especially on a topic that is so important for the safety of the the whole world, and not the drivel that dribbles out of Dumpy McFuckface's burger hole. 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

5 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

And there is the confirmation, once again, precisely why the Iran deal was recinded. There is no denying that Russia is in control of the WH.

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Rudy is not an alcoholic because we can't prove he is one. 

 

[fraurosena]

Well, it looks like withdrawing from the nuclear deal went over well in Iran. 

Oh, it also went over well in the rest of the world too.

 

[fraurosena]

Yikes. This is scary authoritarian stuff. It will only get worse as more of his corruption gets out. He's now openly threatening the free press. No, let me rephrase that. He's now openly threatening your 1st Amendment Rights.

 He needs to be stopped before it's too late, and that might be sooner than you think. 

[apple1]

12 hours ago, Gobsmacked said:

Please come back, even just for a little while President Obama. Please. 

Isn't it wonderful to read a properly worded statement that makes sense, especially on a topic that is so important for the safety of the the whole world... 

This is one of the things I miss the most. And not only the written things, but same for the spoken things.

[Howl]

5 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Rudy is not an alcoholic because we can't prove he is one. 

 

I was thinking just last night about the parallels between Scaramucci and Giuliani.   Both brought on to fix a problem, neither was vetted very well and both launched disastrous PR campaigns which were/are epic fails because both are totally unhinged; maybe its just an Italian thing?  I can't speak to substance abuse issues. 

There's a lot of speculation on twitter about how many more Scaramuccis (or Mooches) pass before Giuliani exits with a knife in his back.   A Scaramucci is 10 days, more or less. 

 

[fraurosena]

American detainees freed from North Korea, Trump says

Quote

Three Americans held in North Korean labor camps were free and on their way home Wednesday, President Donald Trump said.

Kim Hak-song, Kim Dong-chul and Kim Sang-duk, who is also known as Tony Kim, had all been detained by Kim Jong Un's regime for up to two years.

Trump announced in a tweet that the "wonderful gentlemen" were on a plane with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and heading back to the U.S. "They seem to be in good health," he wrote.

He also confirmed that a date and place had been set for face-to-face talks with Kim Jong Un — a diplomatic breakthrough that follows the dictator's offer to suspend nuclear and missile tests and discuss "denuclearization."

and

Full details of the men's condition were not immediately available but South Korean reports last week quoted a local activist as saying they had recently been relocated from a labor camp to a hotel on the outskirts of Pyongyang.

Detaining — and then releasing — U.S. citizens has given Pyongyang leverage in negotiations with Washington in the past.

North Korea last year released Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student who was convicted of "hostile acts" in 2016 after visiting Pyongyang. However, he was so weakened by his time in a labor camp that he died days after returning to Ohio.

Tony Kim, 59, was detained at Pyongyang Airport in April 2017as he was preparing to leave the country. The Korean-American accounting professor had been working at the Pyongyang University of Science Technology, an institution privately funded by Christian groups in the West.

His California-based son, Sol Kim, 27, has been lobbying for the humanitarian release of all three men. “We are thankful that the President has chosen to engage directly with North Korea,” the family said in a statement earlier Wednesday. “We do think it's time for them to come home.”

Kim Hak-song, who was also working at the Pyongyang Science and Technology University, was held in May 2017 for "hostile acts against the republic.” The institution said Kim was doing agricultural development work not connected with the university.

The longest-held detainee is Kim Dong-chul, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison with hard labor in April 2016 for espionage and subversion. Paraded before cameras ahead of his trial, he said he had spied for South Korean intelligence authorities in a plot to bring down the North's leadership and had tried to spread religion among North Koreans. However, South Korea's National Intelligence Service said his case wasn't related to the organization in any way.

Despite the imminent release of the three American detainees, the U.S. last week slammed the North Korean regime over human rights.

Of course this is good news for these three men. 

The presidunce will be touting this as the feather in his cap ad nauseam, but make no mistake, it is not something to gloat about, for this achievement is not as great as it may seem on the face of it.  You see, the release of these men before the talks has given Kim Jong Un leverage in the negotiation. This is his quid, and you have to wonder what the quo pro from the US will have to be. Pair that with the blatant message yesterday of the utter untrustworthiness of this administration in keeping US promises, and these talks can only end in failure for the US. 

 

[Gobsmacked]

Will exiting the Iran deal affect lots of jobs in the USA now that orders for the Planes for Iran are nixed? I know nothing about Plane building jobs in the USA.

[Audrey2]

4 minutes ago, Gobsmacked said:

Will exiting the Iran deal affect lots of jobs in the USA now that orders for the Planes for Iran are nixed? I know nothing about Plane building jobs in the USA.

But, sadly, it will create a lot more when the U.S. and Iran go to war. Wow! I hate being this cynical...

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump thanks federal employees with $143.5 billion in retirement cuts"

Spoiler

President Trump really knows how to say thank you.

Just as festivities geared up for Public Service Recognition Week, which began Sunday, his administration sent a letter to Congress proposing $143.5 billion in compensation cuts for federal employees.

In a letter to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) on Friday, Office of Personnel Management Director Jeff T.H. Pon pushed four proposals that, over 10 years, would significantly cut retirement benefits for 2.6 million federal retirees and survivors.

Saying he wants “to bring Federal benefits more in line with the private sector,” Pon proposed:

• Eliminating supplements for Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) annuitants who retire before being eligible for Social Security benefits.
• Reducing federal pensions by basing them on workers’ basic pay five-year averages instead of three years.
• Increasing employee retirement contributions with no increase in benefits. The plan would sharply boost the 0.8 percent of basic pay most FERS employees contribute. The letter makes the impact on federal retirees clear. “Under this proposal, FERS employee deduction rates will increase by 1 percent per year until they reach 7.25 percent of basic pay. … This proposal would require FERS employees to fund a greater portion of their retirement benefit.”
• Reducing or eliminating retirement cost-of-living adjustments. The administration plans “to reduce the cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) by one half of one percent and to eliminate COLAs under the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) for current and future retirees.”

In addition to these retirement cuts, the administration also has proposed freezing federal pay next year. Employees suffered a three-year freeze on basic pay rates under the Obama administration. With next year’s planned freeze, federal employees would have been hit with $246 billion in cuts to wages and benefits, complained J. David Cox Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which released Pon’s letter after getting it from a congressional source.

“President Trump’s war on working people knows no limits,” Cox said. “As Wall Street shareholders are reporting record profits and the wealthiest 1 percent are basking in their massive tax cuts, President Trump believes the career employees who keep the government running deserve another cut, this time to their retirement.”

Pon signed the letter to Ryan, but it certainly has Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney’s fingerprints all over it. The proposals were part of the administration’s budget proposal released in February, before Pon took office.

Ryan did not respond to a query about the letter, but Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was upset. Calling the Trump administration’s proposal “draconian,” he said, it “would betray the promises the nation has made to middle-class federal workers who dedicate their lives to public service — as well as their families — and it would severely degrade recruitment and retention.”

Pon’s signature on the letter raises additional questions.

In a conference call with reporters last week, Pon talked about the need to have “data required for having an intelligent conversation” with federal unions about compensation and having “that dialogue with the same data.” So why he is pushing major compensation cuts before there is any dialogue or agreement on the data?

The data differ.

In April, a Federal Salary Council report said federal pay lags behind the private sector by about 32 percent. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office said that feds are paid 3 percent more overall than private-sector workers, but that varies widely with educational level. Those with no more than a high school education are paid about a third more than their private-sector counterparts, while those with a professional degree or more are paid about a quarter less.

Furthermore, Pon has called for “wholesale change” to the civil service system, which would have to include compensation. He promised to have a civil service overhau; plan by the midterm elections and criticized previous proposals as “nibbling around the edges.”

If that’s the case, why is he pushing the retirement cuts before his larger plan is ready? I asked OPM these questions. Its response did not address them but largely copied language from the letter.

Perhaps Pon will explain when he appears at a Public Service Recognition Week forum on civil service changes Wednesday morning at the Partnership for Public Service. During the call with journalists, he answered only questions submitted in advance. We were allowed no live questions or follow-ups.

I’m sure federal retirees would like to ask him about keeping commitments.

“In exchange for years of hard work over long careers, our government made a commitment to middle class federal and postal workers that they would receive federal pensions in retirement,” said National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) President Richard G. Thissen. “Those pensions are not gifts. Diminishing their value in any way for those who have already earned them — including by eliminating or reducing COLAs, altering how they are calculated, or eliminating an entire element of the pension — fails to honor the basic commitments made to our public servants.”

In his Public Service Recognition Week proclamation, Trump praised the workforce for its commitment, saying: “Every day, our Nation’s civil servants help make America better, safer, and stronger. This week, we honor their efforts and extend our gratitude for their exceptionalism and steadfast commitment to serving the American people.”

They can take that to the bank.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"The big question about Trump that’s sitting in plain sight, unanswered"

Spoiler

Earlier today on “Morning Joe,” Mika Brzezinski raised the question of whether President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal was really an effort to “deflect” from other story lines — that is, from the many scandals now consuming the administration.

“Our allies are upset, for sure, at a time when I think the president’s sanity is being questioned globally,” Brzezinski said, adding that “the totality of this president’s behavior and decisions” raises the question of whether “he has the moral compass to make a decision based on our own national security even, at this point.”

This hints at a broader question, one that is sitting there right at the end of our noses: Is Trump capable of formulating — or operating in accordance with — any meaningful conception or vision of what is good for the country?

This question goes beyond the particulars of the Iran nuclear deal. On that front, you can read this Post editorial calmly demolishing the decision as a deeply reckless one that makes war more likely. Or you can read The Post fact-checking team’s comprehensive debunking of the lies and distortions that Trump himself offered in explaining the decision.

Or you can read this report saying Trump made the decision in part because he has instinctual faith in his ability to be a “disrupter on the world stage.” Or this one saying Trump is convinced he made the right call because it made the “eggheads” on CNN angry.

Even putting aside the Iran deal for now, other new developments this morning all point toward the question posed above:

• Trump just tweeted that it might be time to “take away credentials” from some news media. He cited a report claiming that “91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake).” Trump explicitly defined all merely negative stories about him as “fake.” This is basically a declaration that the news media’s efforts to hold him accountable are inherently illegitimate, or at least are grounds for retributive action. Is Trump even capable of imagining that criticism of him flows from the crucial institutional role the press plays in our democracy? This sort of thing isn’t mere bluster: It has convinced a majority of Republicans that the press is the “enemy of the people.”

• The Post published a bombshell report claiming that the president might side with Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in a dispute that could endanger an intelligence agent. Nunes is seeking documents from the Justice Department as part of his shadow effort to use Congress’s oversight machinery to create an alt-narrative giving Trump a pretext to shut down special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, if he chooses. Intelligence officials protested that turning over the particular materials Nunes wants could put an agent at risk. To be fair, Trump has so far sided with them. But The Post reports that members of Trump’s own administration worry that he will ultimately side with Nunes — putting an intelligence source at risk — possibly because he may end up convinced that the source provided material to the Mueller probe.

• The Senate Intelligence Committee just released a report finding that Russia waged an “unprecedented, coordinated cyber campaign” against the United States’ voting infrastructure. The larger context: Trump has failed to organize a strong response to future Russian electoral sabotage, because he is reluctant to acknowledge that it happened at all in 2016, as that would diminish the greatness of his victory. This puts Trump at odds with members of his own administration who regard the fact of Russian interference “as objective reality,” putting future elections at risk out of sheer megalomania.

Again and again and again, Trump has made decisions that are obviously not rooted in any meaningful effort to evaluate their substantive and moral complexities or potential consequences. The thinly veiled Muslim ban went forward despite two internal analyses undercutting the rationale that it was needed for national security. When Trump debated whether to cut refugee flows, the White House deep-sixed on deeply spurious grounds internal administration data that showed refugees are a net fiscal positive. Trump’s decision on tariffs was scandalously slapdash and haphazard, and reflected the fact that he was “gunning for a fight” after getting “unglued” over a spate of unflattering headlines.

Trump pardoned former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, in a terrible display of contempt for the rule of law, after getting “sold on the pardon as a way of pleasing his political base.” When faced with a severe backlash over his failure to unambiguously condemn white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, he nonetheless felt “vindicated” because he sensed that his base would agree with him. The idea that he might have a responsibility to speak to the whole nation as a unifying voice at a searingly difficult national moment could not have been further from his mind. Indeed, doing the opposite was arguably the deliberate goal.

Again and again and again, independent reporting has revealed that when the decision-making rubber hits the road — that is, when the actual process kicks in of weighing pros and cons, and complexities and contingencies, and upsides and downsides for the country — other factors have intruded: Trump’s rage over something else. His desire to please his base. His fear of appearing weak. His megalomania. At what point can we say that Trump’s decision-making has become detached from any meaningful effort to act in accordance with any conception of what is good for the country? It’s a question that deserves more airing.

...

I think Dumpy just doesn't care.

[AmazonGrace]

There is nothing he won't lie about 

 

 

[fraurosena]

Huh. So much for making America safer by retreating from the Iran Deal. Because where did most of the muslim terrorists that have attacked America come from again? Yep, that's right. Saudi Arabia.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Today in Petty Child Governs: 

 

[fraurosena]

Good op-ed from the NYT about the shady business dealings of the presidunce and his organization.

Trump’s Shadowy Money Trail

Quote

Before there was a hint of collusion with Russia, there were questions about Donald Trump’s finances. In those more innocent days, the questions were mainly about propriety — why wouldn’t he release his tax returns like other presidential candidates had? — and perhaps a hint of ox-goring: “Billionaire? He’s no billionaire!”

This week it has become clearer that questions about Mr. Trump’s finances, and those about whether his campaign cooperated with Russian hacking of the 2016 election, need to be asked in the same breath.

On Tuesday, we learned that a company linked to a Russian oligarch — as well as corporations with business before the administration — gave a total of more than $1 million to a shell company that the president’s fixer, Michael Cohen, set up just before the election to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels, the porn star who says she had sex with Mr. Trump in 2006.

Those corporations — AT&T, the pharmaceutical company Novartis and Korea Aerospace — paid the shell company, Essential Consultants, during last year. All do business with the federal government or can be affected by federal actions, such as possible controls on drug prices or the Justice Department’s lawsuit against AT&T’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner.

On Wednesday, Novartis said it had actually spent $1.2 million in total, $800,000 more than was originally reported, and AT&T said it had paid as much as $600,000, three times what had been reported. Both issued statements denying any wrongdoing but still leaving the impression that they were paying for access to the president or his fixer.

This sort of suspicious cash was at the heart of a recent report by The Washington Post that found that in the decade before the election, Mr. Trump did something unusual for a real estate developer — he all but stopped borrowing money. Multiple bankruptcies had no doubt exhausted his welcome at any reputable bank, so perhaps the man who called himself the “King of Debt” became more prudent, or he simply faced reality. What happened next, though, was more unusual. Beginning in 2006, the Trump Organization spent $400 million in cash on various projects. The president’s son Eric said they were able to do that with cash generated by other Trump businesses, even at the height of the Great Recession. That explanation has raised the eyebrows of business experts.

It also contradicts what Eric and his older brother, Donald Trump Jr., said in the years before the word “Russian” became radioactive for them.

“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets,” Donald Jr. said in 2008. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

The golf writer James Dodson said last year that during a visit to a Trump golf course in 2013, Eric told him of his family company’s financing: “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”

Around the time Donald Trump said goodbye to American banks, he said hello to Mr. Cohen, a lawyer whose résumé, one might have expected, would have screamed, “Stay away!” to a legitimate businessman.

From at least 1999, according to a recent Times report, Mr. Cohen had dealings with Russian mob figures and began finding business deals in, and with people from, Russia and the former Soviet Union. By 2007, Mr. Cohen was working for the Trump Organization as a fixer and deal maker.

Even during the 2016 campaign, Mr. Cohen pursued plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow, coordinating with Felix Sater, a felon with ties to Russian mobsters who had worked on other deals with Mr. Trump.

After Mr. Trump’s election, while the F.B.I. was investigating whether his campaign helped Russian efforts to put Mr. Trump in the Oval Office, Mr. Cohen visited his boss in the White House. During that February 2017 visit, Mr. Cohen left for the national security adviser, Michael Flynn, a plan to lift sanctions against Russia, which had been imposed for its attacks on Ukraine. These sanctions had squeezed the sorts of people Mr. Cohen dealt with. The plan was proposed by Mr. Sater and a Ukrainian politician with ties to Paul Manafort, a former Trump campaign chairman.

Mr. Flynn has since pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with Russians, and Mr. Manafort is under indictment on charges of financial crimes that involved Russians.

At the moment, Americans are lucky to have Robert Mueller, the special counsel, examining all of this. Mr. Mueller was appointed after Mr. Trump fired the F.B.I. director James Comey because of his frustrations with the Russia investigation. Mr. Mueller has been looking at Mr. Cohen’s affairsand records from the Trump Organization. And one question that Mr. Trump’s lawyers say Mr. Mueller wants to ask the president is what communication did he have with Michael D. Cohen, Felix Sater and others, including foreign nationals, about Russian real estate developments during the campaign.

Russians and cash — they’ve been a part of Mr. Trump’s life for years, and now they’re elements of the investigation into whether his campaign conspired with Moscow to corrupt American democracy. Mr. Trump’s affection toward the Russian president has led many to ask, “What does Putin have on Trump?” Maybe the ledgers will tell.

I don't think it's a question of maybe the ledgers will tell. I think they have already told everything there is to Mueller's investigation.