Trump 40: Donald Trump and the Chamber of Incompetence

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, formergothardite said:

I have a feeling that something bad is going to happen in this next election so that he can remain in power. It will not be a real election. He is not giving up power. We are in bad, bad times. And I don't know what to do. 

You need to nuance your thoughts, dear @formergothardite, even though your feeling that something bad is going to happen isn't unfounded. I think it's a given that something bad will be attempted by the desperate repugliklans. However, I don't believe they will succeed. They will try to hack, they will suppress votes as much as they can, they will lie, cheat and do anything and everything to 'win' the elections. Let them. It will come back to bite them with sharp, pointy teeth. Because the democratic turnout will be so great, the blue wave will be so big, that the GOP will be annihilated in the next elections. So yes, be aware of all the dirty rotten tricks that will be used, and point them out. Educate the people around you as much as you can. Try and motivate as many people as you can to get out and vote. If there are obstacles in their way, try and help them get around them (like organizing transportation if that's helpful, or helping people register, or volunteer for your candidate of choice). Even if what you do seems small and doesn't seem impactful, you need to remember that if you are doing it, others are too, and all those little bits together will make a difference. 

[formergothardite]

I'm not convinced that the GOP and Trump won't go beyond their normal shady election rigging stuff. I can easily see that if it looks like Trump is losing they will change votes, lose votes, do something so that no matter how many people vote against him he will keep power. They have rigged to court systems in their favor if the election is challenged. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Mar-a-Lago is a counterintelligence nightmare"

Spoiler

Ali Soufan, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, is a private security consultant and the author of “Anatomy of Terror.”

Imagine that the White House, instead of a fortress, were an opulent country club. If you pony up a $200,000 nonrefundable initiation fee, you can have the run of the place. Wander the halls. Drop in any time on the West Wing, the Oval Office, the Situation Room. Chat freely with the president’s family and advisers, listen in on national security conversations with foreign leaders, even snap a selfie with POTUS himself. Take it all in — actually, feel free to record it, if you’d like.

Welcome to the Mar-a-Lago Club, known in Trump circles as the winter White House, in Palm Beach, Fla. When Yujing Zhang, a 32-year-old Chinese national, was arrested there March 30 after breaching security, it was hardly surprising to learn from federal law enforcement authorities that she was in possession of five cellphone SIM cards, an external hard drive, nine USB thumb drives (one with malicious computer software installed) and a device for detecting electronic signals. Zhang, who has not entered a plea , is charged with lying to a federal agent and illegal entering. The FBI is investigating whether she is a spy for Chinese intelligence.

My personal experience as a counterterrorism agent tells me that Zhang’s alleged loadout is consistent with an effort to monitor computer systems while evading surveillance.

Unfortunately, Mar-a-Lago appears wide open to such operations. Zhang’s arrest is only the latest in a string of indications that the club is far from secure. Mar-a-Lago may present the worst counterintelligence nightmare the country has faced since the Cold War. 

Concerns began barely three weeks into the Trump presidency, when the president took a briefing on a North Korean missile test while sitting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the club’s packed terrace; other guests promptly used their phones to snap photographs of the event for their social media feeds. That could not have happened at the White House, not even during a state banquet, because visitors are not allowed to take in their devices. At Mar-a-Lago and other Trump resorts, there is no such restriction; indeed, according to federal prosecutors, Zhang’s interesting taste for electronics included carrying four cellphones on her person.

Experts regularly raise concerns about the president’s apparent use of an unsecured iPhone, and with good reason: A competent intelligence operation can turn any consumer cellphone into a trove of information about its user — or into a live bug for listening in on its owner’s conversations.

If even President Trump’s own devices are not immune to hackers, what of those employed by the informal advisers with whom he regularly huddles at his various estates? ProPublica has reported that a group of three Mar-a-Lago members — a businessman, a doctor and a lawyer — exercise huge sway over decision-making regarding the Department of Veterans Affairs. How secure are their devices and the devices of other advisers with influence on other matters?

For that matter, how secure is the Mar-a-Lago wireless network used by the club’s influential members and guests, many of them friends of the president? What about the club staff’s computers? It is perhaps telling that one Mar-a-Lago visitor was reportedly able to gain sufficient access to the staff computer system to change its screen saver to an obscene message about the president.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was quick to describe Zhang’s arrest as an indication of “the threat that China poses,” strongly suggesting that the State Department suspects her of spying. Yet Chinese influence-peddlers, some of them with unabashed connections to the Communist Party, continue to sell invitations to Mar-a-Lago online with impunity. And no wonder, given the lax security there. The Secret Service can operate checkpoints and try to monitor visitors, but Mar-a-Lago isn’t Camp David; it’s a venue rented out for wedding parties in the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom.

Whether Zhang is ultimately charged with espionage, one thing is clear: Every hostile intelligence service worthy of the name must have eyes and ears at Mar-a-Lago and other Trump resorts. Take it from an intelligence veteran: If Vladimir Putin ran his dachas as open-access country clubs, any U.S. president would expect this country’s intelligence agencies to be running assets there.

Trump is, of course, entitled to discuss policy with whomever he pleases; as president, he is the ultimate declassification authority. But, as with his freewheeling personal Twitter account, the administration is trying to have it both ways: insisting that the winter White House is as good as the official version in terms of prestige and symbolism, yet less than official in terms of vetting and security.

For the safety of the United States’ secrets, and of the president himself, a comprehensive review of Trump’s unique way of working, and its counterintelligence implications, is urgently needed.

 

[fraurosena]

5 hours ago, formergothardite said:

I'm not convinced that the GOP and Trump won't go beyond their normal shady election rigging stuff. I can easily see that if it looks like Trump is losing they will change votes, lose votes, do something so that no matter how many people vote against him he will keep power. They have rigged to court systems in their favor if the election is challenged. 

Hmm. But didn’t Trump moan about the courts never siding with him only yesterday? They haven’t had a single court case ruled in their favor up to date. As for Trump challenging the outcome of the election, I think that’s a given. I don’t really doubt that he will lose. Bigly. And I’m optimistic that the courts will uphold the results. It’s what will happen when he realises he has lost that has me worried. All manner of ugly scenario’s could unfold. I hope he’ll eventually concede, ungraciously of course, and leave the WH. ( He will not attend the inauguration.) That’s what I hope. But I’m afraid he won’t go out without one hell of a fight. He knows full well that criminal indictments are inevitable once he leaves office. America needs to be prepared for any eventuality. 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

5 hours ago, formergothardite said:

I'm not convinced that the GOP and Trump won't go beyond their normal shady election rigging stuff. I can easily see that if it looks like Trump is losing they will change votes, lose votes, do something so that no matter how many people vote against him he will keep power. They have rigged to court systems in their favor if the election is challenged. 

I hate that I agree with you, but I do.

He will get another 4 years and will keep power no matter what he has to do.

shady machinations if necessary for sure, but he may not have to do much as he’s got a corrupt system in place where he needs it and enough support amongst the populace.

this is just the beginning of our quickening roll toward fascism.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"At fundraiser, Trump reveals reelection strategy: Cruelty, lies, hate"

Spoiler

As you may have heard, President Trump openly fantasized about the prospect of U.S. troops unleashing violence on desperate migrants, many of whom are trying to exercise their legal right to seek refuge in the United States.

At a fundraiser in Texas late Wednesday, Trump seethed that our military is constrained from getting “a little rough” at the border, because “everybody would go crazy,” preventing it from acting the way it would “normally act,” or how “another military from another country would act.”

In saying these things, Trump previewed an important component of his reelection strategy.

We know this, because Trump basically has now told us so.

The New York Times reports that at the very same event, Trump declared that the current humanitarian crisis at the border will be a political winner for him against Democrats in the 2020 campaign.

“I think they’re going to pay a very big price in 2020,” Trump said. “I think the border is going to be an incredible issue. And they’re on the wrong side. They want to have open borders.”

We’ve heard this boast before

You may recall that we heard the same boast in the lead-up to the 2018 elections. Top immigration adviser Stephen Miller crowed that “the fundamental political contrast” would pit Trump’s vision against the “open borders” Democratic Party, which, he said, was “completely marginalizing itself from the American voters.”

The arrival of asylum-seeking migrants was also central in 2018. House GOP incumbents across the country ran ads saturated in ugly and lurid demagoguery about them, and Republicans suffered their biggest House loss since Watergate. Even Republicans admitted Trump’s immigration focus helped cost them the suburbs.

It’s worth noting that painting migrants as criminals, and creating the vague impression that military force might be required to repel them, were also key in 2018. Trump lied endlessly to criminalize them, and sent in the military as a prop to dramatize the supposed danger they posed. He even made this explicit by saying things like: “This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!”

Thus, it doesn’t look like an accident that at the Texas event, Trump also said that “I’m gonna have to call up more military,” while claiming that Central American countries are “sending” the “tough ones” and “the gang members.” This telegraphs we’ll likely see more of the very same lies and hate-mongering in 2020.

The 2018 loss does not guarantee that this won’t work for Trump’s reelection. It’s possible Trump’s base will turn out for him in a way it didn’t for House Republicans, and that anti-immigrant demagoguery will boost that. But we can say for sure Trump does not acknowledge that this strategy cost his party in 2018, and thinks the worsening of the asylum crisis can only help him.

No, Trump has not been vindicated

Trump’s swagger about 2020 is of a piece with an argument Trumpworld has been making: that the enormous spike in asylum-seeking families proves he was right all along — it helps politically because it confirmed his underlying diagnosis of the situation.

But this is utterly ludicrous on just about every level. The centerpiece of that diagnosis has been Trump’s treatment of the situation as a security crisis that required a border wall to manage. But more barriers can’t prevent these arrivals due to basic geographic and legal realities. The very fact that the crisis continues even as Trump’s national emergency to build barriers is in effect reveals the profound folly here.

Then there are Trump’s efforts at deterrence. Trump’s now-canceled family separations did not slow the arrivals. Various efforts to make it harder to apply for asylum have been blocked in court.

Finally, there’s what Trump wants to do now. The core of the administration’s argument is that families keep coming — despite not qualifying for asylum — because they can get past an initial “credible fear” screening and can exploit backlogged courts and legal settlements preventing the detention of children to vanish into the interior while awaiting a hearing.

Thus, Trump and Miller are now plotting new efforts to make it harder to pass that initial screening, by putting tougher-minded border patrol officials in charge of it, and are demanding the right to hold families indefinitely. But as Dara Lind shows, the first of those is probably illegal and unworkable, and the second might be illegal as well (and even some inside Trump’s administration are resistant to it).

Could Democrats in Congress give Trump legal changes that accomplish those goals? Yes, in theory. But they aren’t going to do that, because it would require a huge retreat on our international and humanitarian commitments.

Besides, Trump cannot go around calling migrants criminals, threatening to shut down the government and the border, and bashing Democrats as “TREASONOUS” while simultaneously demanding serious Democratic engagement on this problem. It’s absurd. That’s another way Trump’s whole approach is proving a disastrous failure. Trump thought he could solve this with maximal “toughness” both toward migrants and Democrats. Nope.

Democrats can quite plausibly argue that there’s a better response. This is an extremely difficult and complex problem. But it’s precisely because of this that we should attempt a massive, multifaceted approach that includes big investments in improving conditions in the origin countries to mitigate “push” factors, which are dominant; sustained regional cooperation; major resources to unclog and streamline courts; and even involvement by the United Nations and improved refugee infrastructure in the region.

But Trump has cut aid to those countries, making regional solutions harder. And “toughness” fails again.

Democrats are beginning to coalesce around such solutions. Trump obviously believes that the worse this gets, the more easily he’ll persuade swing voters that the migrants are a criminal “infestation” that must be repelled through cruelty or even force. There’s no need for Democrats to fear this argument, and one hopes they will engage it frontally.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Republicans confront Trump amid cascading controversies"

Spoiler

As Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell asked Republicans this week to head off problematic nominees before President Donald Trump officially picked them, the Kentucky Republican singled out Ken Cuccinelli.

Floated for the job of Homeland Security secretary, the former Virginia attorney general runs the anti-establishment Senate Conservatives Fund, which he joined in 2014. McConnell remarked Tuesday that the group had cost the GOP seats in 2010 and 2012 by guiding the party away from more electable candidates, according to attendees at the closed-door Republican policy lunch.

Now with McConnell up for reelection and eager to protect his narrow majority, it's Senate Republicans who are trying to take control.

In addition to confronting Trump on his purge at the Department of Homeland Security and his threat to deploy auto tariffs and keep existing levies, GOP senators hope they can persuade the president to avoid nominating Cuccinelli or Kris Kobach, another immigration hard-liner, to lead DHS. They also want Trump to drop plans to nominate Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve and are considering whether to challenge Stephen Moore's nomination to the Fed.

“We’re trying to do everything we can to send the message before they send these people up here,” said a Republican senator who 20 seconds later lamented a separate problem: Trump’s “trade nightmare.”

It’s an unusual time in Trump’s Washington, with a Senate Republican majority that’s been at odds with the president for months now — and with GOP senators increasingly comfortable in trying to ward off what they see as Trump’s worst impulses. It’s an inflection point, with Senate Republicans weighing how hard to try to contain the president.

“We’ve been down this road so many times, it’s hard for me to measure," Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said when asked about the simultaneous intraparty struggles. "It just happened to be issues that came to the surface at the same time."

“This moment is a little more stacked than probably most other moments,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who met with Trump about his Space Force proposal on Tuesday and sought to downplay the feuds. “The president is very good at trial balloons and pulling back.”

The tensions between Trump and Senate Republicans have raged for four months, an arc that intersects neatly with when Mick Mulvaney took the reins as the president's acting chief of staff and helped goad the president into a shutdown that lawmakers loathed — and then into a national emergency declaration that a dozen Republicans voted against on the Senate floor.

Some Republicans barely hide their feelings about Mulvaney. Asked about his role during the shutdown, Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) responded that “some people were interfering” in bipartisan negotiations.

At Mulvaney’s urging, Trump pressed Senate Republicans to put forward an Obamacare replacement plan, with the president telling reporters he would transform the GOP into “the party of healthcare.” McConnell soon made it clear his caucus would do no such thing, and the president backed off, tweeting that Republicans would wait until after the 2020 elections to introduce a new health care plan.

Yet Senate Republicans are still wrestling with the Trump administration, trying new ways to blunt the administration from taking them places they don’t want to go.

Asked about steel and aluminum tariffs he wants removed before backing Trump’s new trade deal with Mexico and Canada, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) responded: “I’ll spend five minutes with you if the president reads what you say.”

Grassley’s concerns aren’t isolated to the president’s protectionist strategy. He’s also pleading with the White House to keep his former staffer on as head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Oh, and he had to rebut the president’s ruminations on wind turbines causing cancer just last week.

He’s not the only senator embroiled in multiple fights with the administration.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is pushing back on the sacking of DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secret Service director and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director and nominee.

“It’s unfortunate to have so many vacancies and so little time for proper transition,” Romney said of DHS. “So it’s a very troubling setting.”

Romney said he will vote against Cain if he is nominated to the Fed, joining Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) in opposition. The swift anti-Cain blitz might cripple his nomination in the Senate — though Trump could go forward with him, Kobach or Cuccinelli anyway and test his sway with Senate Republicans.

The goal, though, is for Senate Republicans to stop the nominations before they are forced to vote on them.

“It’s just a pragmatic concern,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. “It just saves a lot of potential embarrassment and difficulties if there’s consultation on the front end.”

Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Wednesday he’s trying to protect the job of DHS counsel John Mitnick so the department is following the law and also backed Kevin McAleenan, now the acting DHS head.

“My preference would be to try to stabilize the situation,” Johnson said.

The Trump administration is also facing pushback on far weightier issues than personnel.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) fumed on Wednesday after he pressed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on whether the United States has the authority to go to war with Iran, to which Pompeo replied that he’d “prefer to leave that to the lawyers.”

“He couldn’t give me a very good answer,” Paul said in an interview afterward. “You would think the secretary of State would have an opinion on the Constitution and declaration of war.”

Paul seemed less concerned about the DHS shake-up or other personnel moves. And other Trump allies are perplexed at the efforts by some Senate Republicans to thwart the president from nominating his own favorites.

“It’s his job to pick people who share his vision. He’s certainly entitled to do that. And I hope that the Senate will give due consideration to whoever he decides to send up,” freshman Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said.

While Mulvaney’s predecessors, John Kelly and Reince Priebus, sought to restrain the president and forge constructive relationships with Capitol Hill, Mulvaney, a former tea party agitator from South Carolina, has made clear he has less interest in that.

If Kelly worked to limit access to the Oval Office and ensure he had the last word with the president, Mulvaney has adopted a different strategy. He told White House aides early on he had no intention of elbowing them out of meetings.

“Trump has drawn all the wrong conclusions from the first two years,” said Chris Whipple, the author of “The Gatekeepers,” a history of White House chiefs of staff. “We’ve seen that letting Trump be Trump is a recipe for failed government.”

Mulvaney has slowly brought in a half dozen allies, including the head of the Domestic Policy Council, Joe Grogan; a principal deputy chief of staff, Emma Doyle; and an aide with national security expertise, Rob Blair; who share access to the president and usually share Mulvaney’s views.

Since Mulvaney’s ascension, the president, often encouraged by Mulvaney, has provoked his Republican colleagues virtually non-stop. Trump appears freed by the move to push unorthodox nominees and revert to immigration and trade policies unpopular with most of his fellow Republicans.

“The president has his own way of doing things and it’s unconventional and it upsets some people,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said. “This is not Olympic gymnastics where you get style points. This is results.”

Yet even Kennedy had a bone to pick this week, angry enough about Nielsen’s dismissal and the subsequent backstabbing from White House officials to denounce the moves on the Senate floor.

“I don’t like the way her colleagues treated her,” he added. “I don’t think one person, even if it’s Alexander Hamilton, can come into the Department of Homeland Security and fix the immigration problems.”

 

[Cartmann99]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

I just can't get over how insanely stupid Trump is. Yes kiddies, Texas is a big state and choosing to drive across it in one day will make you begin to question your own damn sanity. Especially if you do it with three cats, and their tranquilizers wear off, and you end up begging the universe to not let you snap and drive the car into a semi because of the wailing, but that's a story for another day.

Anyhoo, according to Dr. Google, the state of New York is 330 miles long and 285 miles across at its most distant points, which means there are New York state residents who live hundreds of miles away from each other! 

*grumbles something extremely derogatory about Dear Leader, and gives the swear jar a very dirty look*

Dear Rufus, if someone tells him that Alaska is bigger than Texas and how they don't even have roads throughout the entire state his head will explode.

*thinks for a minute*

Can someone please tell him about Alaska? I've got some brownies left I can send to you. 

Edited April 12, 2019 by Cartmann99

[AmazonGrace]

Why won't you just love me? 

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Why won't you just love me? 

 

Maybe there's hope! 

[GreyhoundFan]

9 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

Dear Rufus, if someone tells him that Alaska is bigger than Texas and how they don't even have roads throughout the entire state his head will explode.

*thinks for a minute*

Can someone please tell him about Alaska? I've got some brownies left I can send to you. 

He'd say it's fake news and everyone knows there's no state of Alaska because it's not part of the continental U.S.

[47of74]

I see fuckhead tried this

Quote

The Trump administration pressured the Department of Homeland Security to release immigrants detained at the southern border into so-called sanctuary cities in part to retaliate against Democrats who oppose President Donald Trump's plans for a border wall, a source familiar with the discussions told CNN on Thursday.

Trump personally pushed Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to follow through on the plan, the source said. Nielsen resisted and the DHS legal team eventually produced an analysis that killed the plan, which was first reported by The Washington Post.

The proposal is another example of Trump's willingness to enact hardline immigration policies to deliver on border security, a key issue for his political base. Thursday's reports come as the President has amplified his rhetoric on illegal immigration in recent weeks, even threatening to close the southern border if Congress and Mexico don't take action.

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller urged senior DHS officials to make the plan a reality, the source said. The plan finally died after Miller and other White House officials pushed it in February, according to the source.

Someone needs to tell the reincarnated Joseph Gobbles and fuck head that I'd rather have a city full of immigrants than one that has even a couple Branch Trumpvidians.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

11 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

I just can't get over how insanely stupid Trump is. Yes kiddies, Texas is a big state and choosing to drive across it in one day will make you begin to question your own damn sanity. Especially if you do it with three cats, and their tranquilizers wear off, and you end up begging the universe to not let you snap and drive the car into a semi because of the wailing, but that's a story for another day.

Anyhoo, according to Dr. Google, the state of New York is 330 miles long and 285 miles across at its most distant points, which means there are New York state residents who live hundreds of miles away from each other! 

*grumbles something extremely derogatory about Dear Leader, and gives the swear jar a very dirty look*

Dear Rufus, if someone tells him that Alaska is bigger than Texas and how they don't even have roads throughout the entire state his head will explode.

*thinks for a minute*

Can someone please tell him about Alaska? I've got some brownies left I can send to you. 

I want very much to hear the story of your doped up cats coming off their high!  I’ll be watching your status with anticipation!

11 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

Can someone please tell him about Alaska? I've got some brownies left I can send to you. 

Only if the brownies contain some of what you have to the cats.  I’ll do it then.

[47of74]

11 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

I just can't get over how insanely stupid Trump is. Yes kiddies, Texas is a big state and choosing to drive across it in one day will make you begin to question your own damn sanity. Especially if you do it with three cats, and their tranquilizers wear off, and you end up begging the universe to not let you snap and drive the car into a semi because of the wailing, but that's a story for another day.

Anyhoo, according to Dr. Google, the state of New York is 330 miles long and 285 miles across at its most distant points, which means there are New York state residents who live hundreds of miles away from each other! 

*grumbles something extremely derogatory about Dear Leader, and gives the swear jar a very dirty look*

Dear Rufus, if someone tells him that Alaska is bigger than Texas and how they don't even have roads throughout the entire state his head will explode.

*thinks for a minute*

Can someone please tell him about Alaska? I've got some brownies left I can send to you. 

Even Iowa is pretty good sized and will take a fair part of a day for a person to get across from one end.  It's about 200 miles north to south and about 310 miles east to west.  Especially if one is going across on two lane roads and to a lesser extent non interstate highways.  (If I left right now I could probably be at the western end late this afternoon or early this evening). 

And of course a good chunk of Iowa is about a century behind the rest of the state.  (Looking at you Steve King land). 

I'm doing direct deposit into the fucking swear jar these days.  What with fuckhead and all the rest of the GOP running around.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump bulldozes across the presidency’s red lines"

Spoiler

President Donald Trump has spent the last few weeks trying to bend to his will what are arguably three of the federal government’s least political institutions – the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Reserve and Department of Justice.

Frustrated by the organizations’ deliberate pace and the substance of their decision-making, Trump has tried to remake them in his own image. He’s purging staffers who disagreed with him, or whom he felt were insufficiently loyal at DHS, and he hopes to stock the Fed with vocal political allies who can do his bidding on monetary policy.

Trump cares little about how such moves will be perceived, former administration officials and Republicans close to the White House say. They argue he always prefers to push the boundaries of what is possible, legally and otherwise. And in year three of his presidency, he’s pushing harder than ever before.

On immigration, Trump has never grasped why the U.S. government could not simply hold undocumented immigrants indefinitely as they awaited immigration court proceedings, according to one person close to DHS. This so-called “catch and release” policy frustrated him, as if the government’s due process should not extend to everyone on U.S. soil. The president reportedly clashed with now-ousted DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen as he sought to bar all asylum seekers from entering the country, in violation of existing law.

Every president chafes at being stymied by Congress or the law, noted Timothy Naftali, a historian and former head of the Nixon Presidential Library. What makes Trump’s actions so unprecedented, he said, is the president’s reaction: Trump appears willing to steamroll through the constraints that American presidents have traditionally respected.

“Instead of learning to become presidential and accepting the structure of the American presidency, he is trying to reshape it,” Naftali said. “He has removed anyone, it appears, who stood up to him and said he cannot do this. This is a huge test of our institutions.”

Trump’s behavior has differed sharply from most presidents since his earliest days in office, when he dismissed the intelligence community’s warnings about Russian election meddling. Months later, he fired the director of the FBI, a drastic step that soon launched the special counsel probe that he regularly denounces as a “witch hunt.” And it’s not just Trump: Top officials routinely implicate thousands of federal workers in a “deep state” conspiracy meant to undermine his presidency.

Cabinet secretaries live in fear of provoking the president’s volatile temper, and often seek to curry favor with their boss in high-profile, televised moments when they know he’ll be watching closely. Attorney General William Barr was the latest top official to cater to this “audience of one,” endorsing the president’s long-held and little-supported view that the FBI was “spying” on the Trump campaign during a congressional hearing on Thursday.

On Friday, Trump showed his appreciation for the political cover from the country’s top law-enforcement official, saying he “absolutely” agreed with Barr — even as the attorney general’s aides were walking back his comments amid widespread criticism in Washington.

Congressional Democrats and former top administration officials immediately decried Barr’s "spying" remarks. On CNN, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called the comments “both stunning and scary … I was amazed at that and rather disappointed that the attorney general would say such a thing. The term 'spying' has all kinds of negative connotations and I have to believe he chose that term deliberately."

But the week’s main challenge to government business as usual unfolded at DHS, where the White House purged four top officials in five days in a stunning decapitation of the agency’s leadership. More could be ousted soon.

Among the departures was Secret Service chief Randolph "Tex" Alles, whose sudden firing — unusual given the agency’s strictly apolitical tradition — did not seem to follow any specific scandal or clear instance of incompetence or malfeasance.

Senior administration officials say the leadership changes stemmed from frustration with the slow pace of rule-making on key immigration policies, but the White House’s irritation also came from an unwillingness on the part of those ousted to push the boundaries of the law and past court rulings.

Trump’s urge to sweep aside those he sees standing in his way will prove counterproductive, former officials predicted.

“The president and the people around him seem to not understand how large organizations work and that you need layers of management and lawyers to get things done,” said Scott Shuchart, a former senior adviser at DHS from 2010 to 2018. “They seem to think that by yelling at people in different ways, the actions of a quarter-million people who work at DHS will somehow change.”

One senior administration official argued that DHS should be able to churn out the president’s policy agenda at a far quicker pace. The official cited the Department of Justice as an example of agency that can draft a regulation in four to six weeks, whereas DHS can take a year to draft a new one, the official said.

But developing complex rules, changing the law and giving people time to comment on new policy does not follow any set time frame, and the government is required to follow certain steps.

“I’ve seen rules that have taken 10 years or more in the drafting stage,” said Susan Dudley, the former administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President George W. Bush.

Once a rule is written, the government must ask for comment and sort through the feedback. “You need to develop a record for the inevitable litigation,” Dudley added, especially on a contentious area like immigration where several of Trump’s policy moves have been blocked by the courts.

It isn’t just Trump’s lack of appreciation for the due process right of immigrants. He’s also publicly pondered why the U.S. can’t act tougher and rougher at the border. Riffing on immigration policy in Texas on Wednesday, he said: “Our military, don’t forget, can’t act like a military would act. Because if they got a little rough, everybody would go crazy.” He added: “They have all these horrible laws that the Democrats won’t change [and] they will not change them.”

On the Federal Reserve, the president has received blowback for tapping two overtly political figures: Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation who once ran the conservative advocacy group Club for Growth and helped to author Trump’s tax plan and Herman Cain, a former pizza magnate who once ran for president. (Cain’s future, however, seems in doubt given the number of Republican senators who say they oppose his prospective nomination.)

Appointing seemingly political figures to the Fed is not wholly unprecedented, said David Wessel, the director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. President Ronald Reagan caused some controversy when he picked two Fed governors, Manley Johnson and Wayne Angell, whose policies did not match up with those of the then-chair, Paul Volcker. The banking system survived.

“Moore will change the tone of the Fed, but he will not change the policy,” Wessel said. “When it comes to the independence of the Fed, the capacity of the Federal Reserve, governors and bank presidents to tune out the president’s tweets and make the decisions is still intact.”

But if Moore’s ends up being confirmed, it will be for a 14-year term — a legacy, like judicial nominations, that will live well beyond Trump’s time in office.

And if Trump makes too many picks for the Fed who seem overly political and Wall Street loses its confidence in the institution because it no longer perceives it as independent, that would have dire effects on the global economy, undermining one of Trump’s most effective re-election messages in 2020.

Even some former administration officials who admire the president and his policies acknowledge that he does not pay attention to traditional rules of the government and often does not know the legal boundaries of his job since he’s only two years into his term.

They perceive that Trump’s impatience with the obstacles standing in his way has only increased in recent months as he’s grown more comfortable in the office.

“What we are seeing is the erosion of the presidency to where what is left is just the president,” said Cliff Sims, a former Trump official and author of a recent tell-all book about the White House.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"White House seeks tighter oversight of regulations issued by Fed and other independent agencies"

Spoiler

The White House on Thursday for the first time said it was requiring the Federal Reserve and other independent agencies to submit new guidelines for review, a controversial step that has long been a goal of conservative groups.

The Fed and other agencies already have to publicly issue proposals, guidelines and rules, but they have not been required to first submit all of their regulatory guidelines and even “general statements of policy” to the White House. Importantly, the new restrictions would not apply to the Fed’s actions as it pertains to setting interest rates, but it would apply to many of its other functions, particularly bank regulation.

The step could have the effect of nullifying or blocking a range of new regulatory initiatives, and it could have blocked guidelines issued by the Fed and other bank regulators in 2013 that sought to limit the amount of risky corporate loans issued by banks.

The increased scrutiny would also apply to other agencies and issues, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Federal Election Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Although the chairmen of these agencies are often appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, their policies are established by the vote of a commission with bipartisan membership. And, unlike agencies such as the Treasury Department whose leadership reports directly to the president, historically the White House has not had authority over their actions.

But in a memo on Thursday, Russell Vought, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, instructed all federal agencies to submit a range of proposals to the White House so that a determination could be made as to whether they are “major” or “minor.”

If the proposals or guidance are deemed “major,” they will also need to be submitted to Congress for review, which would slow the process down significantly and give Congress the power to vote to block any plan, under powers granted through the Congressional Review Act.

“In our system of separation of powers, agencies may prescribe rules only insofar as they have statutory authority delegated to them by Congress,” Vought wrote.

A regulation is considered “major” if it has an annual impact on the economy of $100 million or more, could increase costs for consumers or businesses, or adversely impact competition. If a regulation is determined to be “minor,” then it would not be subject to congressional review.

Previously, Congress was only able to apply the CRA to rules, not guidance, but the OMB memo would attempt to change that.

Regulators enforce rules through a variety of mechanisms. The most formal approach is by proposing and writing rules, which often seek public feedback. Rules are typically already subject to the CRA, and Republicans moved in 2017 to invalidate a number of rules with votes in the House and Senate. Regulators can also issue guidance, which stops short of a formal “rule” but is viewed as a powerful step. The Fed has issued guidance a number of times, seeing it as an effective way to send signals to banks and other companies about expectations.

Giving the White House the power to subject an agency’s guidance to congressional review would give the Trump administration much more influence over how the Fed and other agencies interact with businesses.

Vought’s letter describes the new White House requirements as being consistent with its powers under the CRA.

While the letter doesn’t single out any particular agency for particular scrutiny, the Fed could be one of the most controversial government institutions to face oversight.

A Fed spokesman declined to comment.

The Fed is the United States’ central bank, a government agency that has broad powers to set interest rates and regulate banks. Even though the Fed’s chairman and governors are nominated by the White House and confirmed by the Senate, they often try to escape politics and avoid congressional interference.

Trump, however, has taken a much more adversarial approach to the Fed in recent months, attacking Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell and saying he would nominate two political supporters — Herman Cain and Stephen Moore — to the Fed’s board.

While the new OMB review has been in the works for a long period of time, it coincides with a push by the White House to dramatically increase pressure on the central bank and make it more accountable to political leaders.

Conservatives have sought for the White House, through its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, to crack down on independent and other federal agencies for years. Vought is a veteran of the Heritage Foundation, which has played a lead role in calling for this change. Their view is that regulators are given too much power to impose restrictions that harm economic growth, among other things, and there should be political curbs on this power.

Vought’s memo appears to stop short of the most sweeping proposal that some conservatives have long sought, which would give the White House the singular power to block any proposal from the Fed and other agencies if political leaders didn’t like it. But the memo could be seen as a step in that direction.

The 15-page memo doesn’t stipulate what would happen if a federal agency refused to submit proposed guidelines to the White House for review.

“What we don’t know is what happens if regulators don’t” comply with the memo, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and a Republican economist. “What if they tell the White House to pound sand?”

Guidance that the Fed, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued in 2013 regarding risky corporate lending has proved particularly controversial and could become a target of the White House’s efforts. Banks and Republicans have already tried to nullify it amid a push to originate more risky loans.

Following an inquiry from Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) in early 2017, the Government Accountability Office ruled that the 2013 guidance should have instead been issued as a rule, making it subject to CRA.

After that, the bank regulators said they would not enforce the guidance against banks in a formal manner, and banks responded by dramatically increasing the amount of “leveraged loans” they issued to corporate borrowers.

Now, a number of regulators and even some bankers have said the large levels of leveraged loans in the economy could pose a risk and make the next recession more damaging.

The leveraged lending guidance was the focus of a Washington Post front-page article on Sunday.

The Fed and other regulators have issued guidance on other matters in recent years as a way to alert banks to expectations for behavior. These include accounting rules, compliance with stress tests and other measures for gauging risky behavior.

 

[Cartmann99]

@HerNameIsBuffy, I posted the story under my status update for you.  

https://www.freejinger.org/profile/11293-cartmann99/?status=6517&type=status

12 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Even Iowa is pretty good sized and will take a fair part of a day for a person to get across from one end.  It's about 200 miles north to south and about 310 miles east to west.  Especially if one is going across on two lane roads and to a lesser extent non interstate highways

@47of74, let's throw some exciting road destruction  construction in there just for shits and giggles. *bangs head on steering wheel, sobs uncontrollably*

 

[Howl]

Back in the day, I could just go to the vet and ask for kitty tranquilizers when I needed to travel with kitty, or get a supply for several trips. It was no big deal.  My sense is that it's much more tightly regulated now.

I do recall one un-tranquilized trip from Colorado to central Texas, when I finally had to put kitty in the truck bed with camper shell, because I was desperate for a few minutes of sanity somewhere between Cline's Corner, NM and Lubbock, TX.  I could see her soundlessly meowing through the rear window.   She was a good kitty and I miss her. 

[fraurosena]

I guess inciting hatred is the norm now.

Never forget 9-11? Or was it 7-11? ?

 

[thoughtful]

32 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Never forget 9-11? Or was it 7-11?

He was craving a Slurpee.

 

[onekidanddone]

Shouldn’t be Orange Crush color?

33 minutes ago, thoughtful said:

He was craving a Slurpee.

 

 

[Dandruff]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

I guess inciting hatred is the norm now.

Never forget 9-11? Or was it 7-11? ?

He seems to have forgotten some of the more important words in the English language, so whatever...

[WiseGirl]

On 4/11/2019 at 10:29 PM, Cartmann99 said:

I just can't get over how insanely stupid Trump is.

I can't love this enough or repeat it enough.

In today's stupidity

https://nypost.com/2019/04/14/trump-boasts-of-absolute-legal-right-to-leave-illegal-immigrants-at-sanctuary-cities/

[Penny]

I am glad for one thing, my children are grown. I cannot imagine talking to children about the current insanity that is in the white house. Sending the immigrants to sanctuary cities is the dumbest thing I have heard of.  I think he has fired most of his handlers and the new ones can't keep him in check.