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You've been Trumped!

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 29 Aug , 2018 1:41 pm
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http://uk.businessinsider.com/trump-vio ... use-2018-8
Quote:
President Donald Trump on Monday night reportedly told evangelical Christian leaders there would be "violence" if Republicans lost their majority in Congress as a result of November's midterm elections. Trump suggested Democrats would "quickly" and "violently" overturn gains he's made for conservative Christians, according to excerpts of the closed-door meeting obtained by NBC News.

"You're one election away from losing everything that you've got," Trump said, according to the NBC News report. "The level of hatred, the level of anger is unbelievable." Trump apparently went on to say that the midterm elections were not only a referendum on him.

...During Monday's meeting, Trump also reportedly repeated a previously debunked claim that he'd gotten rid of a law that prohibits churches and charitable organizations from endorsing political candidates. Presidents do not have the constitutional authority to repeal laws.

The US president apparent gets his news from The Dailer Caller. This is insane, letting someone with such poor judgement have the power of the presidency.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ons-emails
Quote:
Hillary Clinton’s Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps (Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA, Dirty Dossier etc.), their credibility will be forever gone!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2018

The president's tweet, which did not cite any evidence for the claim, comes following a report from The Daily Caller citing unnamed intelligence sources who said that Clinton's private email server was compromised by the Chinese, a fact it claims was discovered in 2015.

The Trump administration is stirring things up in Israel, as it supposedly prepares to announce Jared Kushner's peace plan.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-set-to ... tv-report/
Quote:
The Trump Administration will announce in the next few days that it rejects the long-standing Palestinian demand for a “right of return” for million of refugees and their descendants to Israel, an Israeli television report said Saturday night. The US will announce a policy that, “from its point of view, essentially cancels the ‘right of return,'” the report said.

The “right of return” is one of the key core issues of dispute in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians claim that five million people — tens of thousands of original refugees from what is today’s Israel, and their millions of descendants — have a “right of return.” Israel rejects the demand, saying that it represents a bid by the Palestinians to destroy Israel by weight of numbers.


...The US — which on Friday announced that it had decided to cut more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinians — and has also cut back its funding for UNRWA — will also ask Israel to “reconsider” the mandate that Israel gives to UNRWA to operate in the West Bank. ... Created in 1949 in the wake of the 1948 War of Independence, UNRWA operates schools and provides health care and other social services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

...This is not the first time Trump has cut longstanding aid bound to the Palestinians. In January, the White House announced it also would withhold $65 million in assistance to UNRWA.

...The funds withheld Friday are directed toward health and educational programs, as well as initiatives to make Palestinian governance more efficient. They are used both in the PA-administered West Bank and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
I've never heard of a peace plan that succeeded in getting both sides to the table by blatantly favoring one side.



Edit to add:
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... ution-rule
Quote:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Wednesday that it is reconsidering a 2011 air pollution rule that has been blamed for numerous coal-fired power plant closures.

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) set new limits for emissions of mercury, lead, arsenic and cadmium, which the coal industry and Republicans have said was central to former President Barack Obama’s “War on Coal.” Now the Trump administration is eyeing changes to the standards, an EPA spokeswoman said.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 30 Aug , 2018 5:02 pm
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It looks like the Trump administration is creating another mess, apparently denying passports to some people who live near the border. I can no longer read the Post, but the story seems to be that some midwives and others provided fake birth certificates to the parents of some newborns in the past. And now people who have always assumed they are citizens are being asked to prove to the government that their birth certificates are valid.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/th ... story.html
Quote:
In some cases, passport applicants with official U.S. birth certificates are being jailed in immigration detention centers and entered into deportation proceedings. In others, they are stuck in Mexico, their passports suddenly revoked when they tried to reenter the United States. As the Trump administration attempts to reduce both legal and illegal immigration, the government’s treatment of passport applicants in South Texas shows how U.S. citizens are increasingly being swept up by immigration enforcement agencies.
Quote:
For now, passport applicants who are able to afford the legal costs are suing the federal government over their passport denials. Eventually, the applicants typically win those cases, after government attorneys raise a series of sometimes bizarre questions about their birth.

“For a while, we had attorneys asking the same question: ‘Do you remember when you were born?’ ” Diez said. “I had to promise my clients that it wasn’t a trick question.”
I haven't seen any other news agencies pick this story up yet - though I expect they soon will.



https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/us/p ... trump.html
Quote:
President Trump surprised Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, on Wednesday by abruptly announcing that Mr. McGahn will be leaving his job this fall, effectively forcing the long-anticipated exit of a top adviser who has cooperated extensively in the investigation into Russian election interference. The president made the declaration on Twitter without first informing Mr. McGahn, according to people close to both men.

...Mr. McGahn’s departure leaves the White House without one of the few senior advisers who have been willing to push back against Mr. Trump. It also raised the prospect of further West Wing exits, particularly in the White House Counsel’s Office, where Mr. McGahn has had a loyal staff, with several people staying in their jobs out of devotion to him.


More tweets from Trump about his latest conspiracy theory:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... fusion-gps
Quote:
Wow, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr’s wife, is a Russia expert who is fluent in Russian. She worked for Fusion GPS where she was paid a lot. Collusion! Bruce was a boss at the Department of Justice and is, unbelievably, still there!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2018

Trump has targeted Bruce Ohr for several weeks. On Wednesday the president asked in in a tweet "how the hell" is Ohr still employed at the Justice Department.

Nellie Ohr's involvement at Fusion has become a flashpoint among Republicans who hint at nefarious motivations, suggesting she was paid to create the dossier — and could’ve possibly passed along the information to her husband at the DOJ.

..."I think Bruce Ohr is a disgrace," Trump tweeted last month. "I suspect I'll be taking it [his security clearance] away very quickly.
And, of course, his loyal supporters in Congress are faithfully pursuing his tweets and grudges, even if they know they're nonsense. They questioned Bruce Ohr yesterday. (in private. My guess is that they wanted to avoid another situation like the one they had with Peter Strzok, where we could all watch some GOP members make asses of themselves)


http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ors-report
Quote:
President Trump has personally been lobbying Republican senators to flip on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Politico reported Wednesday.

Politico reported that Trump, angry with his attorney general, talked about firing Sessions last week during a phone call with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Graham last week said that Trump is “very likely” to fire Sessions and that the president was entitled to an attorney general “he has faith in.”

...According to Politico, Trump's latest drive to fire Sessions was prompted by the guilty plea last week of his former longtime attorney Michael Cohen and the conviction of his former campaign manager Paul Manafort. Both Cohen's plea and Manafort's conviction are tied, in part, to special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation — for which Trump has blamed Sessions.
The implication is obvious - the president of the United States thinks that the attorney general's job is to protect him. And it looks like he wants to fire people until he gets one that does.


http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... inst-media
Quote:
President Trump this week launched a series of sustained attacks on news organizations, with the latest round focusing on prominent executives at CNN and NBC. The president has referenced "fake news" or attacked the media in a dozen tweets in the course of the past week, singling out specific outlets and reporters on multiple occasions. ... "I just cannot state strongly enough how totally dishonest much of the Media is. Truth doesn’t matter to them, they only have their hatred & agenda," Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

...The White House has not held a press briefing for reporters since Aug. 22, the day after former Trump attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted on bank fraud and tax fraud.


I don't have a problem with the federal government presenting a balanced view on marijuana, but this doesn't look like that's what they're trying to do:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -marijuana
Quote:
The White House has tasked a multi-agency committee with countering pro-marijuana messaging, according to a Wednesday report from BuzzFeed News. The Marijuana Policy Coordination Committee reportedly has asked 14 federal agencies and the Drug Enforcement Administration to forward “data demonstrating the most significant negative trends” about marijuana and the threats it poses to the country.




http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/ ... n-canadian
Quote:
The U.S. International Trade Commission voted on Wednesday to overturn tariffs the Trump administration imposed on Canadian newsprint earlier this year. The five-member body voted unanimously that U.S. newspaper producers are not negatively affected by newsprint imports.

Edit to add:

It sounds like the EPA has also quietly eliminated an economic advisory board that wouldn't give them the answers they want. I haven't seen any news stories about this, but Science's editorial this week was by 2 of its former members:
Quote:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6404/729
In June 2018, the EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) eliminated its Environmental Economics Advisory Committee (EEAC)....The EEAC, on which we served (K.B. since 2013, M.K. since 2015), consisted of nationally recognized economists appointed to provide independent advice to the EPA. The committee had been called upon by administrations of both political parties since the early 1990s. But today, many economic analyses that support the Trump administration's regulatory rollbacks conflict with the EPA's previous findings.

The 2017 analysis for eliminating the Waters of the United States rule turned favorable only after excluding all benefits of protecting wetlands. Eliminating the Clean Power Plan is supported in another 2017 analysis only after changing assumptions about the scope of climate damages, the measurement of health effects, and the impact on future generations. Differing assumptions also underlie the economic justification of the administration's 2018 proposal to roll back automotive fuel economy standards.

At an institutional level, the EPA also issued a proposal in June to revamp its approach to benefit-cost analysis.... This could result in the elimination of counting significant co-benefits. For example, a regulation that targets carbon dioxide emissions from power plants can simultaneously reduce other harmful pollutants, and the resulting co-benefit would not be counted.

And someone said Trump was inciting his followers to hate and fear Democrats at the Indiana rally last night, by again claiming that the Democrats would commit violence if they won the midterms. Needless to say, he has said nothing to condemn the right-wing extremists who have been running around Chemnitz, Germany for the last 2 days, attacking people and doing Nazi salutes. If it had been Muslims, I'll bet he would have been tweeting constantly about it.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 31 Aug , 2018 2:19 pm
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http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... izzlies-in
Quote:
A federal judge in Montana issued a court order Thursday temporarily blocking the first trophy hunt of grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park in more than 40 years. ...The order came two days before Wyoming and Idaho were scheduled to allow licensed grizzly hunts that could lead to as many as 23 bears being killed for sport in the two states.

...The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in June 2017 that grizzlies would no longer be listed as a threatened species in and around Yellowstone, leaving states to decide on hunting rules. That announcement corresponded with a slight rebound in the grizzly population after falling to several hundred in the lower 48 states in 1975...Environmentalists opposed the move, saying removing them from the larger population was biologically unsound.
The restraining order will last for 14 days.

Recently, both the Trump administration and the GOP have been working hard to weaken endangered and theatened species protections. So I'm not sure what will happen even if the environmentalists win their lawsuit. Stopping people from filing such lawsuits is also a goal of this administration.



http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... y-blocking
Quote:
President Trump's reelection campaign caught flak Thursday night after a man identified as a rally worker was pictured allegedly trying to block a photographer from capturing footage of a demonstrator. During the president’s rally in Indiana, where Trump continued to ramp up his attacks against the news media, a man identified as a volunteer member of the president's advance team can be seen blocking the lens of a photographer.
Important to remember that this man represents the president of the United States. And the White House did not condemn this or promise to look into it when contacted by The Hill.


http://thehill.com/homenews/news/404518 ... ed-america
Quote:
A man arrested Thursday for allegedly making threats against The Boston Globe praised President Trump as he left court following his release on bail. “I would like to make one statement. America was saved when Donald J. Trump was elected president,” Chain told reporters, according to Boston's local CBS station.

You’re the enemy of the people, and we’re going to kill every f---ing one of you," Chain allegedly said in one phone call, according to CNN.

Chain, who was arrested near Los Angeles, was charged with making 14 threatening phone calls threatening the newspaper after it led a campaign denouncing President Trump’s attacks on the media. ....Before being released on bond, Chain was ordered to give up all the guns in his possession. Authorities reportedly discovered at least 20 firearms in his home. He faces up to five years behind bars and a fine of $250,000.



Remember when Trump claimed his goal was zero tariffs between the US and trading partners?
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/40446 ... fs-to-zero
Quote:
President Trump on Thursday refused an offer from the European Union to lower car tariffs to zero.
“It’s not good enough,” Trump said of the offer that came earlier in the day from Brussels during an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg News. “Their consumer habits are to buy their cars, not to buy our cars," he said.

Earlier, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told the European Parliament
that Europe would be willing to cut car tariffs to zero if the U.S was willing to do the same.
So does that mean Trump also wants EU governments to force people to buy American cars they don't want, and run giant, gas-guzzling SUVs on narrow city streets? And, in turn, will he pressure Americans to buy European goods they don't want?



http://fortune.com/2018/08/30/trump-can ... conditions
Quote:
President Donald Trump said he’s canceling pay raises for most federal workers that were to take effect in January, citing “serious economic conditions” and the strain that the raises would place on the federal budget.

The move would undo a planned raise for most federal workers, including a 2.1% across-the-board increase as well as raises that account for higher costs of living in cities like San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C. The pay raises were intended to help federal salaries keep pace with inflation. Consumer prices have risen 2.9% in the 12 months through June.

... In April, the Federal Salary Council reported that the overall salaries of federal workers lags the salaries of similar workers in the private sector by about 32%.

...“The cost of employing the Federal workforce is significant,” Trump wrote. “In light of our Nation’s fiscal situation, Federal employee pay must be performance-based, and aligned strategically toward recruiting, retaining, and rewarding high-performing Federal employees and those with critical skill sets.”
Translation - my political employees deserve high salaries. But the secretary who keeps the office running and the janitors don't deserve a cost-of-living raise.

Fortune also notes:
Quote:
In December, Trump signed a tax reform bill that is forecast to expand the U.S. deficit by about $1.5 trillion over 10 years. The president has often touted the strength of the U.S. economy on Twitter.In June, he boasted of presiding over what he called the “Best Economy & Jobs EVER.”




http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... in-custody
Quote:
Hundreds of children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border remain separated, according to a court filing on Thursday. ... 497 children remain in U.S. government custody, CNN reports. Twenty-two of those children are under the age of 5, according to the report. The parents of 322 children have been deported, including the parents of six children 4 years old or younger, CNN reported.

Only 14 children were reunited with their parents since last week, according to the government.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... d-of-being
Quote:
Bank of America is facing scrutiny amid reports they have been freezing the bank accounts of customers suspected of not being legal U.S. citizens. The Miami Herald on Thursday published a report featuring numerous profiles from Bank of America customers who have alleged the bank either froze or threatened to freeze their accounts due to citizenship questions.
One of the examples:
Quote:
Saeed Moshfegh, an Iranian doctoral student at the University of Miami, told The Herald he was denied access to his bank account after his local branch told him it could not accept the documentation that showed his current status as a student.



Edit:

I have to give the Trump reelection campaign credit for responding appropriately to the incident where a rally worker tried to stop a photographer from taking a picture of a protester:
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/40456 ... ng-lens-of
Quote:
[White House Correspondents' Association] President Olivier Knox said in a statement on Friday that he spoke with Trump's 2020 reelection campaign about the incident, who said it taken the the volunteer off the road.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... a-on-trade
Quote:
President Trump said privately that he won’t compromise at all with Canada on trade, according to remarks obtained by The Toronto Star.

Trump, in comments he wanted “off the record” in an interview with Bloomberg News reporters on Thursday, said he won't be budging in trade talks with the U.S.'s northern neighbor, according to a source familiar with the conversation. The president reportedly said he could not disclose his position publicly because “it’s going to be so insulting they’re not going to be able to make a deal."

“Here’s the problem. If I say no — the answer’s no. If I say no, then you’re going to put that, and it’s going to be so insulting they’re not going to be able to make a deal … I can’t kill these people,” Trump said of the Canadian government, the Star reported.

The president reportedly said a possible deal on trade with Canada would be “totally on our terms.”
I can't figure out the end of his comment at all, except that something is going to be very insulting to the Canadians. But it's pretty clear that Trump's idea of negotiating with other sovereign nations is that of a bully.


Trump is upset that the Star reported his remarks:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... canada-are
Quote:
It is unclear how the Star obtained Trump's remarks from the interview. The president appeared to confirm in his tweet Friday that the reported comments were accurate.

Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait attended the interview and did not dispute the authenticity of the remarks that the Star reported.
Edit to a link to the complete story from the Toronto Star:
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2018 ... anada.html
Quote:
The unusual series of events began on Friday morning, when the Star asked Trudeau’s team, which was heading into a critical top-level 9 a.m. meeting with Trump’s team, for comment on the remarks.

Trudeau’s team believed the remarks to be accurate, and it saw them as confirmation of its suspicions that Trump’s team has not been truly planning to compromise. Earlier on Friday morning, before becoming aware of the remarks, a Canadian official told the Star the U.S. side was not offering “any movement” on the issues most important to Canada.

So at the outset of the Friday meeting — which was expected to involve Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and senior Trudeau adviser Gerald Butts among others on the Canadian side and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and senior Trump aide Jared Kushner among others on the U.S. side — Trudeau’s officials unveiled the quotes to their U.S. counterparts.

The Canadian government declined to comment on what transpired in the meeting.
It includes Trudeau's remarks:
Quote:
Trudeau, who happened to be in Oshawa as the drama unfolded, said: “We will only sign a deal if it is a good deal for Canada.” “Again, no deal is better than a bad deal for Canada and for Canadians, and that’s exactly what we are remaining firm on. However, we know that it is possible to get a deal that works in everyone’s interests,” he said.

“Over the past year and a half, there’s a lot of things that have been said from time to time. I think people have noticed that our government’s appproach is always to stay constructive, positive, to engage on the substance of issues, and to demonstrate that we understand that the path forward is one of making sure that there’s a win-win-win on all sides.
The latest is that the Canadians did not agree to the US terms and the talks will continue next week. Which means that the deal, if any, will be made under Mexico's new president, which is something the Trump administration had hoped to avoid.



http://thehill.com/policy/national-secu ... ump-over-a
Quote:
Department of Justice (DOJ) official Bruce Ohr reportedly told lawmakers during a private interview this week that former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele told him that Russian intelligence officials believed “they had [President] Trump over a barrel.”

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/40 ... ns-go-well
Quote:
Vice President Pence said Thursday that Republicans plan to give another try to repealing and replacing ObamaCare if they do well enough in November’s elections.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... -integrity
Quote:
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) internal watchdog is auditing how the agency deals with issues of scientific integrity. In a notice released Friday, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) said it would launch research into how the EPA implements and adheres to its scientific integrity policy. The audit was launched voluntarily by the office, so it is not connected to a specific request from a lawmaker or complaint.


Apparently, the Canadian newspapers are keeping track of Trump's lies, too:
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2018 ... ident.html
Quote:
Donald Trump stood before a gathering of Ohio Republicans and warned the party faithful that the national motto, “In God We Trust,” was under threat. “Did you see some court ruled against it the other day?” Trump asked. No court had ruled against “In God We Trust” the other day. Nor the other month. There have been no recent rulings against the use of the phrase, groups on both sides of the issue told the Star.

...Trump made 20 false claims in the speech to the Ohio Republicans. He did even worse at his campaign rally in Charleston, West Virginia, with 24 false claims. And he added 13 false claims in his interview with Fox and Friends... And he caused an international incident with a false claim he made on Twitter.

....Trump is now up to 2,436 false claims for the first 584 days of his presidency, an average of 4.2 per day.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 04 Sep , 2018 2:47 pm
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Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018 ... umps-clown
Quote:
How Rudy Giuliani Turned Into Trump’s Clown
The former mayor’s theatrical, combative style of politics anticipated—and perfectly aligns with—the President’s.
Most of this long article is about Giuliani, his past, his style, and his relationship with Trump. But there are some things worth noting about Giuliani's aims:
Quote:
This spring, Giuliani met with Mueller and his staff, and Giuliani pressed the special counsel about whether he believed that a sitting President could be criminally indicted. ... Giuliani recalled Mueller saying, “Well, we’re going to reserve our thinking on that.” Giuliani told me that after “two days, with a lot of going back and forth,” Mueller’s team affirmed that it wouldn’t indict, regardless of the result of the investigation. (Mueller’s spokesman declined to comment.)

This apparent concession has shaped Giuliani’s defense of Trump ever since. He now knew that there would never be a courtroom test of the President’s actions; the only risk to Trump was that Mueller’s report could lead Congress to impeach the President, a process that is political as much as it is legal. ... As a result, Giuliani has set out to destroy Mueller’s reputation. His efforts have been helped by Mueller’s tight-lipped media strategy—neither the special counsel nor anyone on his staff talks to the press, so Giuliani’s attacks always go unanswered.
Quote:
Giuliani has sown abundant confusion about the facts underlying Mueller’s investigation. One of the key questions in the obstruction-of-justice inquiry is whether Trump encouraged Comey to go easy on Michael Flynn, then the national-security adviser, who was under investigation for lying to the F.B.I. At first, Giuliani seemed to acknowledge that Trump had asked Comey to give Flynn “a break.” In more recent statements, Giuliani has denied that Trump even discussed Flynn with Comey. His comments about the notorious Trump Tower meeting in June of 2016, between campaign officials and the Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, have similarly devolved into falsehoods.
The New Yorker also debunks Trump supporters' nonsense about a "perjury trap." A few weeks ago, many of them (or bots?) were flooding message boards with that talking point.
Quote:
Giuliani’s animus toward Mueller precipitated what may be his most notorious recent gaffe. He has objected to the interview by saying that the President’s words may conflict with those of other witnesses, leading Mueller to conclude that Trump is lying—what Giuliani calls a “perjury trap.” This is a contrived objection, since any reasonable prosecutor would look at a range of evidence, especially corroborating witnesses and documents.
There are also questions about whether Trump will allow Mueller's report to be released:
Quote:
Giuliani pointed out a little-known aspect of the agreement that Trump’s original legal team struck with Mueller: the White House reserved the right to object to the public disclosure of information that might be covered by executive privilege. I asked Giuliani if he thought the White House would raise objections. “I’m sure we will,” he said, adding that the President would make the final call. In other words, the conclusion of the special counsel’s investigation could be the beginning of a contentious fight over whether Rosenstein is allowed to release a complete version of Mueller’s report.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -lawmakers
Quote:
President Trump on Monday slammed Attorney General Jeff Sessions over criminal charges brought against two Republican congressmen in recent weeks, suggesting that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had endangered GOP hopes of retaining both seats in the November elections.

...The president was referencing charges against Reps. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), both of whom were early supporters of Trump. The Justice Department charged Collins early last month with securities fraud and lying to the FBI about his efforts to tip off family members with nonpublic stock information to help them avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars in investment losses.

....Weeks later, the DOJ charged Hunter and his wife, Margaret Hunter, with misusing $250,000 in campaign funds, and falsifying campaign records to the Federal Election Commission to conceal the purchases. Hunter allegedly used campaign funds to pay for his family's dental work, his children's tuition, international travel for nearly a dozen relatives, fast food, golf outings and more.


Trump continues his strategy of alienating US allies and trading partners:
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/40469 ... nafta-deal
Quote:
President Trump on Saturday characterized the North American Free Trade Agreement trade agreement as "one of the WORST Trade Deals ever made" and warned that if Canada could not come to an agreement with U.S. trade negotiators, the country would be left out of a possible trade pact.
And while Trump does his best to generally sow discord, tears up all sorts of agreements with other countries, attacks NATO and casts doubt on its principle of mutual defense, Russia and China are planning to conduct the largest war games since the Cold War.



Edit:
The Washington Post (behind a firewall) has the first look at Bob Woodward's new book. A couple of the revelations - more at The Hill and the Post:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... dward-book
Quote:
White House chief of staff John Kelly called President Trump “unhinged” and “an idiot” in conversations with aides recounted in Bob Woodward's new book, which was obtained by The Washington Post on Tuesday. Kelly reportedly lashed out at Trump and said during a small group meeting ...“He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in Crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here,”
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... n-korea-of
Quote:
The Post report on Tuesday recounts a National Security Council meeting on Jan. 19 in which Trump questioned U.S. government spending in the region, and played down the significance of having a big U.S. military presence on the Korean peninsula. Trump also appeared to disregard the significance of a special intelligence operation set up in Korea that would allow the U.S. to detect a missile from North Korea in seven seconds, much faster than 15 minutes from Alaska, the Post reported, citing Woodward’s upcoming book, “Fear: Trump in the White House.” “We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” Mattis reportedly told President Trump.

After the meeting, “Mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like — and had the understanding of — ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader,’” according to the Post's account of the book.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... hite-house
Quote:
Veteran journalist Bob Woodward offers a damning portrayal of the Trump White House in a new book, according to excerpts published Tuesday in a story by The Washington Post. The Watergate reporter’s book details numerous instances of conflict between the president and his staff, and paints the picture of a dysfunctional White House full of “predators,” in the words of former chief of staff Reince Priebus.
Unlike "Omarosa" and the "Fire and Fury" author (can't remember his name), Woodward has a long career as a respected journalist.



http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... afety-rule
Quote:
A federal court has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to start enforcing a major Obama administration regulation on the safety of chemical plants and similar facilities.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit made the order Friday after environmental groups and Democratic state attorneys general asked the judges to skip the traditional 52-day waiting period to enforce their Aug. 17 ruling, which found that the Trump administration improperly delayed the regulation.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 05 Sep , 2018 1:11 pm
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David Graham at The Atlantic asks the important question: what happens when/ if Trump gets rid of the remaining "adults in the room" - e.g., Kelly, Mattis, Coates, Pompeo - who are trying to control crazytown. Is that going to leave no one but people like Steve Bannon, Steven Miller and Hannity as the influence on our national policies, plus Trump's impulses? Or Sarah Sanders, who spends her days trying to normalize Trump's lies?
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... is/569284/
Quote:
There's Always a New Low for the Trump White House
Bob Woodward's latest book shows the administration is broken, and yet what comes next could be even worse.

btw, Kelly and Mattis have already denied they said what Woodward claims they did. Which Trump supporters have seized on like the Holy Grail (never mind the equally logical conclusion that this is what you'd expect them to say if they want to keep doing their jobs). The trouble is, we have others describing the current White House the same way, including the Republican congressman who broke ranks last year and described it as an adult daycare.

Also, Woodward is not a fool. He has documents, apparently including videos, of his research.

To me, one of the dangers now is that Trump has been publicly humiliated by the revelations of his staffers' true opinions, and he's known for getting his revenge.




Edit: And what the hell are a bunch of conspiracy theorists doing at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on social media?

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/40 ... cial-media
Quote:
Infowars founder Alex Jones made an unexpected appearance on Capitol Hill for Wednesday's back-to-back hearings with executives from Facebook and Twitter, drawing media attention both inside and outside the committee room...He later held an impromptu press conference outside the hearing room.

Jones was joined by fellow conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, and Chuck Johnson, who sued Twitter for banning him, was seated in the front row of the hearing room.

The Senate Intelligence hearing will focus on foreign election meddling via Twitter, Facebook and Google.
Jack Posobiec is the loony and Trump supporter who promoted the Pizzagate theory (Hillary Clinton running a sex trafficking ring out of a DC rpizza restaurant), and who crashed a performance of Julius Caesar (where Trump was portrayed as Caesar) and shouted "You are all Nazis!" Among other things, I'm sure.


Chuck Jones is another Trump supporting nutter.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/wikileaks ... on-2017-11
Quote:
A far-right blogger who set up a meeting between the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and US Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in August may have tipped Assange off to an anti-Trump website that WikiLeaks then sent to Donald Trump Jr. in September 2016.

Charles Johnson, who calls himself an independent journalist and runs a site called GotNews, published an article at about 9:30 p.m. ET on September 20, 2016, claiming he had “obtained a memo from a George Soros-tied PR firm that is launching a website to spread conspiracy theories about Donald Trump’s connections to Russia.” Soros is the investor and business magnate who has become a favorite bogeyman of the far right.

And in case you've been lucky enough never run into him, Alex Jones is another Trump supporter with a long list of conspiracy theories to his name:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 83986.html
Quote:
Some of his most deranged include: the fear that the Robert Rodriguez grindhouse thriller Machete (2010) could start a race war between Mexicans and Americans; that the government controls the weather; that Michelle Obama is really a man; that Hillary Clinton being able to open a jar of pickles on Jimmy Kimmel’s chat show was fixed; that Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl half-time show enacted a Satanic rite; and, most famously, that the Pentagon has a “gay bomb”, chemicals from which it has allowed to leak into the water supply turning “the friggin’ frogs gay!”
He also claimed the shooting of elementary students at Sandy Hook was a hoax. And he pushes the "Deep State" craziness.
Quote:
President Donald Trump nevertheless expressed his admiration for Alex Jones’s “amazing reputation” on the campaign trail,

I assume Alex Jones influenced Trump's belief that Google is biased against him (Trump).
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 81131.html
Quote:
Alex Jones pleads with Donald Trump to fight 'censorship' after Infowars host is banned by YouTube and Facebook
Conspiracy theorist praises president and accuses China of meddling in US elections in free-wheeling monologue

Maybe this explains why those 3 nuts have prominent seats in the Senate Intelligence Committee meeting? An editorial from The New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/opin ... iracy.html
Quote:
The Alex Jones Presidency



And, of course, Dear Leader is busily trying to figure out who blabbed to Bob Woodward.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... hite-house
Quote:
President Trump has undertaken an effort to determine who cooperated with veteran journalist Bob Woodward for his forthcoming book about the White House, CNN reported Wednesday.

Two unidentified officials who have spoken with the president told the network that Trump is happy with initial denials from chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis, but is looking to see who else pushes back against claims published in the book. "He wants to know who talked to Woodward," one official told CNN.

An official told the network that it is unclear if anybody will lose their job because it would give credibility "to a book [Trump] is trying to discredit."

CNN reported that Trump believes former national security adviser H.R. McMaster and former economic adviser Gary Cohn may be responsible for anecdotes in the book, since they are featured prominently in excerpts.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 05 Sep , 2018 8:55 pm
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What an extraordinary day. Three loony conspiracy theorists in the Senate hearing, Trump searching for the people who revealed the state of the White House to Woodward. And now this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opin ... tance.html
Quote:
The Times today is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. We invite you to submit a question about the essay or our vetting process here.
Quote:
President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

I would know. I am one of them...
Quite clearly, this was written by a conservative who supports the military buildup and tax cuts for corporations - and, more than likely, the anti-environmental agenda at the EPA and Interior:
Quote:
Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more
And he or she has been willing to hide Trump's failings to promote the GOP agenda:
Quote:
The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.
But he or she confirms what Woodward and others have said:
Quote:
Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.
And then there's this:
Quote:
Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis.


I admit, I'm floored. Disgusted with the officials who decided it's OK to have an unhinged president as long as GOP goals are being met. Relieved that at least they're not willing to let Trump wreak total destruction. And sickened that they could stand by and watch him do immoral things like separate families, and not act.



And, predictably, Trump supporters online are dismissing the NY Times - who undoubtedly knows exactly who wrote this and thought it worth publishing - as a hoax. What a bunch of damn fools some Americans are.


Edit to cut one quote for length.

Last edited by aninkling on Thu 06 Sep , 2018 2:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 06 Sep , 2018 12:26 am
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ce-over-to
Quote:
Hours after the piece was published, Trump questioned whether the official exists and demanded that the paper turn the author over to the government, saying it is a national security issue.

“Does the so-called “Senior Administration Official” really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source?” he tweeted. “If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”
That's it. Trump's dictator impulses in full view.



I've been thinking about the NYT editorial, and can only assume that the anonymous official wrote it either because the truth was about to come out anyway, or because they would no longer be able to control Trump, now that Woodward has revealed their methods. If the last few days won't get Americans to act, I'm not sure there's much point in continuing to document the Trump administration's abuses.

Some day in the future, I imagine that a bunch of clueless Americans will be saying "But I didn't realize..." And I won't have the slightest sympathy for them.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 06 Sep , 2018 12:35 pm
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ers-report
Quote:
President Trump has grown increasingly paranoid about individuals within his administration trying to undermine him, and carried a handwritten list of suspected leakers for some time last year, Axios reported Thursday.

Officials told the news outlet that they agreed with the sentiments expressed by an anonymous senior administration official who blasted Trump in an op-ed in The New York Times and described an effort among some staffers to push back against the president's impulses.
Link to original Axios article : https://www.axios.com/trump-administrat ... eb36c.html
Quote:
Exclusive: Trump's nightmare: "The snakes are everywhere"
Worth reading. The statements from the other officials suggest this crisis is snowballing.



More signs of rot within the current GOP leadership:
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/40530 ... -lawmakers
Quote:
House Republicans are chewing over a proposal to hold members accountable for not voting along party lines or signing discharge petitions — two acts of rebellion that GOP leadership has had to grapple with this year.

Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) pitched the idea on Tuesday to the Steering Committee, where it received a warm reception, but the panel decided to hold off on voting on the resolution until after the midterm elections, according to two GOP lawmakers who were present and a Republican source.
Apparently, this is in response to centrist Republicans trying to reach across the aisle to Democrats on immigration issues, and some other things.



Interesting timing:
http://thehill.com/policy/international ... first-term
Quote:
A South Korean official said Thursday following a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that Pyongyang is willing to denuclearize by the end of President Trump's first term, The Associated Press reported.

...Trump thanked Kim for his trust in a tweet early Thursday.
At least Trump still has some friends. Or, at least, dictators who like the way they can use him.




And The Atlantic has several good editorials today about the crisis. This one is, I think, especially insightful:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... up/569461/
Quote:
Congressional Republicans Are the Real Authors of the Anonymous Op-Ed

The Constitution demands that the legislature serve as a check on the executive. In its absence, unelected bureaucrats are taking it on themselves to act.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 06 Sep , 2018 7:10 pm
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And the GOP response on the allegations that Trump is incompetent and the only thing keeping us from disaster might be his staffers thwarting him in the White House is.... surprise, surprise.... crickets.

Oh, but they might want to investigate and/or fire the writer of the editorial.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/40536 ... dishonesty

So far, Ryan is particularly disgusting:
Quote:
Some of Trump’s top allies on Capitol Hill have rushed to Trump’s defense following the publication of the op-ed on Wednesday afternoon.

...When Ryan was pressed on whether he shares some of the concerns about the president voiced in the op-ed, he shifted his focus to some of the GOP’s successes under Trump. “What I concern myself about are the results of government. And the results of government are good results,” Ryan said, ticking off a list of recent accomplishments. “I know the president is very unconventional, and I know his tweeting and unconventional tactics bother people, but the results of government are good results,” he said.“And we’re in a different branch of government,” he added. “This is our knitting, and that’s why we’re sticking with our knitting, because it is making a positive difference in people’s lives.”
I think I'm starting to see why the author decided to pen an anonymous editorial instead of going to Congress and detailing his/ her concerns. Why put your name to something, get fired and have nothing happen, as opposed to possibly stopping one of Trump's irresponsible impulses?


It seems we've been screwed by Trump and his GOP enablers.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 07 Sep , 2018 6:13 pm
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/us/p ... ntana.html
Quote:
'I’m Winning,’ Trump Tells Montana Crowd as He Tries to Regain Control Amid Turmoil
http://uk.businessinsider.com/trump-ral ... deo-2018-9
Quote:
As President Donald Trump delivered an impassioned speech at a campaign rally in Billings, Montana, on Thursday, one audience member had some colorful reactions to the president's remarks.



And quite a contrast:
https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-n ... index.html
Quote:
Obama gives 'State of our Democracy' speech
text version:
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/40 ... ery-speech
Trump supporters are livid. While Trump made some typically nasty, sour-grapes remarks about Obama's speech being so boring he fell asleep. http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ell-asleep




https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/07/st ... ari-stull/
Quote:
The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Inspector General has widened an investigation into alleged political retaliation by Trump administration officials against America’s diplomatic corps. It is probing claims that a political appointee in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs has taken action against career officials deemed insufficiently loyal to President Donald Trump, according to at least 10 current and former State Department officials.

The Office of Special Counsel, an independent watchdog that oversees the federal government, is also investigating whether Trump’s political appointees—including Mari Stull, the aforementioned senior advisor in the international organization bureau—are carrying out political reprisals against career officials, according to two State Department officials familiar with the matter. The inspector general is also investigating allegations that Stull hurled homophobic slurs at a State Department staffer.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Sat 08 Sep , 2018 2:54 pm
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"Plaid shirt guy" was apparently told to leave theTrump rally because he wasn't being enthusiastic enough for the cameras about everything Dear Leader said:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... et-service
Quote:
The man whose facial expressions behind President Trump at his Montana rally this week went viral online says the Secret Service treated him well but told him "not to come back" when he was removed from his seat behind the president Thursday.

...well before the rally they told us that ‘you have to be enthusiastic, you have to be clapping, you have to be cheering for Donald Trump,’

...“The woman, she came in and she just said, ‘I’m going to replace you.’ I just walked off, I knew I was getting out for not being enthusiastic enough, but I decided not to fight it,” he added.

“Each time I see one of these rallies, I see people behind Donald Trump clapping and cheering and being super enthusiastic, and I’ve always wondered myself, ‘Are those people really being genuine?’ So when I got back there, I knew that I was going to be genuine. I was going to give my actual reactions to the things he said. So whenever I disagreed with him, you could tell that I disagreed. But whenever I agreed with him, I clapped as well,” he said.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Mon 10 Sep , 2018 2:29 pm
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ate-report
Quote:
White House national security adviser John Bolton on Monday will reportedly label the International Criminal Court (ICC) "illegitimate" in an effort to push back on its plan to investigate alleged war crimes committed by Americans in Afghanistan.

Bolton is poised to make the announcement during remarks to the conservative group the Federalist Society, according to a draft of his speech obtained by Reuters.

...“We will not cooperate with the ICC," Bolton will say. "We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us."

The intergovernmental organization is tasked with prosecuting perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Quote:
Bolton will also announce the State Department's plan to close the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington, D.C. “The Trump administration will not keep the office open when the Palestinians refuse to start direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel,” Bolton is expected to say, according to a draft of his speech reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
As if the unstable Middle East needs more provocation. I think this administration very much wants a war to distract Americans from Trump's incompetence and its other problems.

Some sources suggest that the real motivation for closing the PLO is retaliation because they have asked the ICC to investigate Israeli actions during the recent protests. I assume this is partly about the medical personnel who were shot by Israeli soldiers.



More details:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ton-speech
Quote:
Bolton is expected to propose that the Trump administration bans ICC judges and prosecutors from entering the US, impose sanctions on any funds they have in the States and prosecute them in the American court system.
Quote:
The ICC did not respond immediately to advance reports of the speech, but the senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat confirmed that a US official had notified the Palestinian leadership that its diplomatic mission in Washington DC would be closed.


And more sabers are rattling:
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/40585 ... lib-report
Quote:
Syrian President Bashar Assad has given approval for the use of chlorine gas in the country’s last remaining rebel holdout in Idlib province, U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

If Assad deploys the chemical against the approximately 70,000 remaining opposition fighters in Idlib, President Trump has privately threatened to deploy a massive attack against him, people familiar with the exchange told the Journal.

...Officials told the Journal that the president has not settled on the precise trigger for military action or if the U.S. response would target Syria’s Russian and Iranian allies.
Assad's offensive against the remaining section of Syria - which contains refugees who fled there from other regions, ordinary people who happen to live there, and opposition fighters - looks to be a massive humanitarian disaster, with or without chemical weapons. The people there are essentially trapped, since Turkey has closed its borders. But Assad has leveled other cities to rubble and killed large numbers of civilians before, while Trump talked about getting out of Syria, so the administration's new interest in talking to the much-despised "fake news media" about military options strikes me as suspicious.

And with Russia, Iran, Turkey and Israel among the countries having interests in the conflict, plus Trump, this could escalate if people are stupid. Seems that the first crisis that would require an intelligent, informed president might be upon us. And what we've got is Trump and the neocons.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 14 Sep , 2018 3:45 pm
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... cutor-says
Quote:
Manafort Cuts Cooperation Agreement Ahead of Second Trial, Prosecutor Says
Looks like this might be bad news for Trump in the Mueller investigation. I expect he'll be going ballistic in his tweets at some point.

Not that any of it will matter if the GOP continues to protect Trump.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 18 Sep , 2018 1:57 pm
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Trump has declassified certain documents involved in the investigation into Russian meddling and his and his campaign's role in it. He has cherry-picked certain sections of some documents.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-st ... retary-34/
Quote:
At the request of a number of committees of Congress, and for reasons of transparency, the President has directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to provide for the immediate declassification of the following materials: (1) pages 10-12 and 17-34 of the June 2017 application to the FISA court in the matter of Carter W. Page; (2) all FBI reports of interviews with Bruce G. Ohr prepared in connection with the Russia investigation; and (3) all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Carter Page FISA applications.

In addition, President Donald J. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr.
The request of a "number of committees of Congress," of course, is properly translated as "at the request of my GOP supporters, such as Devin Nunes, who are hoping to discredit the Mueller investigation at my request."


So the U.S. president has now decided unilaterally and prematurely that classified documents in an ongoing investigation should no longer be classified, for his own political purposes.

This includes classified text messages related to the Russia investigation. It seems that these could potentially contain information that would reveal things to those currently under investigation.

Also, it looks to me as if the FBI and Dept of Justice cannot redact anything that would reveal their methods, agents and sources of information.

To me, this looks very bad and sets a very bad precedent as well. As I see it, it's an utterly corrupt and self-serving way to derail the Mueller investigation. I guess this is what happens when the person being investigated has unlimited power over the investigators.

And it's not just Trump's fault. I don't much like either political party. But this is entirely the fault of the Republicans who have totally refused to rein in someone who they've known is unfit to be president.




btw, all the other stuff that has become familiar with this administration - political appointees in various agencies under ethics investigations, Trump imposing tariffs on his sole authority, etc - continue unabated. And much of it will probably never come to light until this band of crooks is gone. For instance,
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... ly-putting
Quote:
A former member of the independent federal commission overseeing mine safety accused the Trump administration in a scathing report of endangering the lives of mine workers.... Robert Cohen, an Obama appointee on the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, said that that Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta has cut back on worker safety rules, NBC News reported Monday.

... Cohen [also] wrote a dissent to the Trump administration's decision to ease tough regulations against the Pocahontas Coal Company’s Affinity Mine in West Virginia that was repeatedly cited for safety concerns.

...The Labor Department announced a settlement agreement with Pocahontas on Aug. 31 that would pull back on enforcement actions against the mines after almost five years of violations and lift a “pattern of violations” notice. The same facility was hit with a citation days later on Sept. 5 for failing to protect workers from threats related to calling “roof, race and ribs,” NBC News reported.

Cohen said that the coal company agreed to drop its legal proceedings against the administration in exchange for the deal.

...The Pocahontas mining facility has provided no evidence that it cooperated with federal law enough to have the pattern of violations notice removed, he argued. He also said the coal company and the administration "attempted to shield their actions from the public by initially filing pleadings for us in secret."
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing ... ation-into
Quote:
A senior Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) official has reportedly been suspended without pay as result of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general’s investigation into the agency’s administrator, Brock Long. Politico, citing two government officials, reported on Tuesday that the official, John Veatch, was informed of his suspension last Friday.

...FEMA referred Politico to DHS for comment, but DHS declined to give a statement because the inspector general (IG) investigation is ongoing.

...The ongoing investigation is looking into allegations that Long used government vehicles for trips from his office in Washington, D.C., to his home in North Carolina. Staffers who drove him were reportedly placed in hotels at taxpayer expense upon arriving.

...The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the inspector general probe has been referred to federal prosecutors. Long and two other federal employees may have broken multiple laws, according to the newspaper.

And the EPA's inspector general, who has investigated multiple scandals by Pruitt et al, is resigning. There is almost certainly a story behind this:
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... -to-resign
And it means that Trump gets to nominate the next inspector general for the EPA. Think about that. The person responsible for investigating violations by Trump's political appointees, at the agency Trump and the GOP most want to destroy, will be appointed by Trump.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 20 Sep , 2018 1:05 pm
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Some of the money used to keep migrant children in custody is being taken from the CDC and other agencies:
https://thehill.com/latino/407546-trump ... of-migrant
Quote:
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is reportedly reallocating more than $260 million in funds this year to house the increased number of detained migrant children. According to a letter from HHS Secretary Alex Azar obtained by Yahoo News, nearly $80 million of that funding will be diverted from other refugee support programs, leaving more than $180 million coming from other programs within the department

Those diversions include $13 million from the National Cancer Institute, $5.7 million from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program, and millions from programs within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to Yahoo News.

It turns out that oil prices, trade wars and international diplomacy are "complicated," too, and having an arrogant idiot as president can mess things up. Trump's trade wars have made OPEC members reluctant to raise output, his actions on Iran have made them reluctant to go along with policies that may help the US, and now Trump is blustering that the military-industrial complex will stop supporting some countries in the Middle East, in hopes of bringing oil prices down. As if that would ever happen.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... rices-opec
Quote:
President Trump on Thursday suggested that the U.S. may reconsider military support for countries in the Middle East if members of OPEC don't bring down oil prices.

...The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that OPEC members will be hesitant to increase supply significantly, in part because the Trump administration's trade disputes have affected global markets.....Meanwhile, Iran warned that it would veto any decision from the group that harms its national interests as it reels from sanctions implemented by the Trump administration last month.


https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4076 ... aff-report
Quote:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's recent certification allowing continued U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen came despite objections from much of his staff, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Citing a classified memo and sources familiar with the matter, the Journal reported that Pompeo overruled concerns by most of State Department’s military and area specialists, who were worried about the rising civilian deaths in Yemen's civil war.

Pompeo, instead, sided with his legislative affairs team, who had argued that suspending support could impact plans to sell $2 billion in weapons to America’s Gulf allies, according to the Journal.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Mon 24 Sep , 2018 4:02 pm
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This is only tangentially related to Trump, but this article from the New York Times is one of the better ones I've seen, regarding Kavanaugh's 2 accusers and the events so far, so I thought it worth sharing:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/23/us/p ... stify.html

So far, there doesn't seem to be much evidence to support his accusers, beyond that Kavanaugh came from a privileged background, went to a prep school known for partying, and was a frat boy - probably with all that typically entails - in college. Not an uncommon background for those who are rich and powerful.
Quote:
Two other potential witnesses identified by Dr. Blasey — who she says were not in the room at the time of the assault — have provided statements to the Judiciary Committee to the same effect. One man, Patrick J. Smyth, told committee Republicans in a letter last week that he had “no knowledge of the party in question.” And a woman, Leland Keyser, told the Republicans through a lawyer that she “does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford.”
Ms. Keyser is the friend Dr. Ford supposedly went to the party with.
Quote:
Judge Kavanaugh’s prospects were further clouded on Sunday when The New Yorker reported on a new allegation of sexual impropriety: A woman who went to Yale with Judge Kavanaugh said that, during a drunken dormitory party their freshman year, he exposed himself to her, thrust his penis into her face and caused her to touch it without her consent.

...The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.
Heavy has a more detailed account of Ms Ramirez's accusations. The alleged incident happened in front of other people, during a drinking game at a dorm party. A few people, though no eyewitnesses, do think it could have been Kavanaugh:
https://heavy.com/news/2018/09/deborah- ... kavanaugh/


So I guess we'll just have to see how plausible we find Mr. Kavanaugh vs Dr. Ford and Ms. Ramirez - and all the other ramifications of this (e.g., If the accusations are true, should we derail a middle-aged person's nomination based on who they were as a teenager and/or young man? Is Kavanaugh the same person now as he was then? Do we think he has responded appropriately and truthfully to the accusations?). Apparently, Dr Ford has agreed to testify on Thursday and has dropped her (IMO unreasonable) demand that Kavanaugh testify first before she presents her own accusations.

My only opinion, at this point, is that either she shows up and presents her case or I don't really care what she has to say any more.

Oh and supposedly there's another woman who is being represented by Stormy Daniels's lawyer. He says she has "credible information regarding Judge Kavanaugh and Mark Judge." No other information so far, as far as I know. I have the funny feeling, though, that if the GOP continues to support Kavanaugh, the Democrats will drag it out as long as possible, while the Republicans try to hurry the confirmation in case they lose the midterm elections. Political games from both parties.


Edited for multiple typos.

Last edited by aninkling on Mon 24 Sep , 2018 4:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 25 Sep , 2018 2:02 pm
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Some of the things that have been happening while the Kavanaugh hearings and the will-he-won't-he speculation on whether Trump will fire Rosenstein take up much of the attention:

Pence speaks at the annual "Voter Values" summit:
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out ... er-n912641
Quote:
Vice President Mike Pence over the weekend addressed the annual Values Voter Summit, a conference hosted by Christian activist group Family Research Council, which is designated an “anti-LGBT hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Pence is the first vice president to address the group’s yearly event, and last year President Donald Trump became the first sitting president to do so.

According to the Family Research Council’s website, the Values Voter Summit was created in 2006 to “provide a forum to help inform and mobilize citizens across America to preserve the bedrock values of traditional marriage, religious liberty, sanctity of life and limited government that make our nation strong.”

In his address on Saturday, Pence checked off Trump’s deliveries to his evangelical Christian supporters...

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... -pesticide
Quote:
The Trump administration is appealing a federal court ruling ordering the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos.... a pesticide that has been linked to developmental and neurological disorders.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... afety-rule
Quote:
The Trump administration on Monday repealed a mandate that would have required trains carrying crude oil to use special brakes with new technology. The Department of Transportation's Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) said it undertook a congressionally mandated analysis of the provision in a 2015 regulation under which oil trains would have had to use electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes.

“The Department [of Transportation] determined that the expected benefits, including safety benefits, of implementing ECP brake system requirements do not exceed the associated costs of equipping tank cars with ECP brake systems, and therefore are not economically justified,” PHMSA said.

The mandate to phase out traditional air brakes for crude oil use was part of a comprehensive rule that the Obama administration wrote in 2015 to try to improve the safety of crude oil trains.
The Obama administration wrote the rule after several accidents involving oil trains, including a horrific loss of life in Lac-Megantic, Quebec where fires swept through the town and a couple of accidents in the US that also killed people. The article mentions that oil transport by train has risen significantly in North America in recent years.


https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... ered-black
Quote:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) plans to approve within ten days a request by a hunter to import the trophy of a black rhino killed in a controversial hunt last year, according to an official email reviewed by The Hill.... The black rhinoceros is considered a critically endangered species, but Namibia allows up to five of the animals to be killed in hunts each year, according to FWS.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... zzly-bears
Quote:
A federal judge on Monday restored Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park, reversing a decision the Trump administration made last year. The District Court for Montana ruled Monday that federal officials didn't considered threats to the species when they lifted threatened species protections on the Yellowstone grizzly more than a year ago, opening up the animal to hunting for the first time in decades

An editorial about a hidden cost of Trump's tariffs - dealing with all the paperwork for exemption requests. It also shows how unpopular these tariffs are:
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/408 ... of-tariffs
Quote:
At the time of its announcement earlier this year, the Commerce Department estimated that it would receive 4,500 exclusion requests from the steel tariff and 1,500 from the aluminum tariffs.... [but] Commerce wildly underestimated the number of exclusion requests they would receive.

...Data from regulatory.gov show the average number of requests per firm is 43 for steel and 22 for aluminum. For steel, three firms have filed over 1,000 requests for tariff exclusions, and one firm has filed 2,563 (voestalpine High Performance Metals Corp). For aluminum, three firms have filed over 100 requests, and one firm has filed 639 (Mandel Metals, Inc.).

All of this paperwork takes staff time to process, and there’s a huge backlog. As of Sep. 10, U.S. manufacturers from across the country have filed 28,769 exclusion requests for steel and 3,674 for aluminum.

Steel and aluminum producers can file objections to a request, and each one of those must also be handled. There have been over 12,000 objections filed for steel and 285 objections filed for aluminum. That comes to 44,539 filings in total.

Commerce estimated it would take 24,000 hours of Commerce staff time to process these requests (four hours per request). By our count, and using Commerce’s own calculations of four hours per request, it would take 178,000 hours, which is equivalent to over 50 people working full time for nearly two years. And the requests are still coming in.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 26 Sep , 2018 3:02 pm
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Transcript of Trump's speech to the UN.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/ ... ipt-840043

Speeches are just speeches, but whoever wrote this one (rumors say Steven Miller) was totally disconnected from reality and assumed everyone is stupid and uninformed and willing to accept Trump's spin on reality. It's a very tone-deaf and insulting speech to an international body. The gist of the whole thing is "America is great and I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing" despite some pretty phrases about respecting other countries. I'm surprised they listened as politely as they did, though there was apparently some laughter and remarks.


I did get a good laugh at these 2 gems:
Quote:
The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship. We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return.
So .... why did Trump and cronies pull funding from international aid groups that happen to discuss abortion (or have ties to groups that do) among the many other services they provide? As one of a hundred examples. The US tells countries what to do all the time and uses economic and political pressure to get its way. The Trump administration is no different.
Quote:
I have forged close relationships and friendships and strong partnerships with the leaders of many nations in this room, and our approach has already yielded incredible change.
Well, I have to admit that enmity is a relationship... And he's forged close personal friendships with Putin and Kim Jong Un. Certainly Trump has changed things in the world.


Interesting bit below:
Quote:
Virtually everywhere socialism or communism has been tried, it has produced suffering, corruption, and decay. Socialism’s thirst for power leads to expansion, incursion, and oppression. All nations of the world should resist socialism and the misery that it brings to everyone.
It sounds like the Trump administration's next targets might be "socialist" policies like Social Security and Medicare. Or maybe this was a dig at the EU? Or at other countries Trump and Miller consider their enemies? Who knows.

And capitalism has no thirst for power? Give me a break.



And it can't be easy, having to be this much of a sycophant to your boss:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... ed-respect
Quote:
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley suggested Wednesday that world leaders laughed at President Trump's speech at the U.N. the previous day because they respect and enjoy his honesty.


Incidentally, new allegations have surfaced against Kavanaugh and they're serious:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/26/michael ... tnick.html
The witness said Kavanaugh was among those who spiked the punch at parties - which was not uncommon in the 80s, at least with alcohol (young men and women both did it, though "the punch is spiked" was usually communicated to party-goers, including those who didn't want to drink too much. At least, at the parties I went to.).

But she claims alcohol and/or drugs were used, though the statement is vague about whether Kavanaugh did both.

And there's this:
Quote:
Swetnick, 55, said these efforts by Kavanaugh and his buddy Mark Judge were done so the girls "could then be 'gang raped' in a side room or bedroom by a 'train' of numerous boys."

"I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their 'turn' with a girl inside the room. These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh," Swetnick said.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 27 Sep , 2018 3:17 pm
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https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... afety-rule
Quote:
The Trump administration moved Thursday to ease provisions of a key offshore drilling safety rule, saying some of the Obama-era standards were unnecessarily burdensome on oil and natural gas companies.

The rollbacks from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) focus on safety requirements for the period when an offshore platform is producing oil and natural gas...The Thursday rollback removes the mandate that independent third parties certify safety devices for effective operation in the most extreme conditions, allowing oil company employees to examine devices themselves and document the process.

The new regulation also eases notification requirements for companies. For example, they will no longer have to notify BSEE of “false alarms” from safety equipment sensors and only have to inform officials when they start initial oil or gas production at a site, not every time they start production. BSEE is also updating a dozen standards in the rule

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... endangered
Quote:
Thousands of scientists have signed a letter to the Trump administration this week urging the federal government's protection of the Endangered Species Act. Three organizations representing about 9,000 biologists wrote to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Monday in an open letter accusing the Trump administration of trying to erode protections for endangered wildlife for commercial profit, according to Reuters.

Changes being considered by the Trump administration to the Endangered Species Act, first announced in July, would end the practice of treating "endangered" species the same as species labeled as "threatened," and would reduce habitat measurements to include an animal's current range, instead of its expected range upon species recovery.
Of course, Zinke and Ross will ignore it.


https://thehill.com/policy/finance/4086 ... e-too-high
Quote:
President Trump claimed Wednesday that he turned down a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the two countries attempt to overcome a rift in trade policy. "His tariffs are too high, and he doesn’t seem to want to move, and I’ve told him ‘forget about it,'" Trump told reporters during a press conference at the United Nations in New York.

"We’re very unhappy with the negotiations and the negotiation style of Canada. We don’t like their representative very much," he added in an apparent reference to Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland.
Yeah, this is just what we need in a president. Someone who is very happy every time he receives a letter from Kim Jong Un, but who won't meet with the representative of a major US ally.

Also possible that Trump invented this meeting request. Canadian officials said they didn't know anything about it.




And the Kavanaugh accusations are turning into a total circus, with both sides essentially trying this in the court of public opinion. The GOP has come up with a couple of men who are apparently willing to say they might have been the ones who were totally drunk, pinned Dr Ford down and tried to pull off her clothes when they were all teenagers.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-ba ... -kavanaugh
Quote:
Senate Judiciary Committee investigators spoke to two men earlier this week who believe they may have been involved in the alleged sexual assault at the center of Christine Blasey Ford's accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the committee said late Wednesday.
Sorry, but this is not fair. If they question witnesses to support Kavanaugh, they also need to question the witnesses Ford wanted. And the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee were apparently not told anything about these men. That stinks of partisan b.s.

Also, a former boyfriend of the third woman implies she's not a stable and reliable witness. He apparently has a restraining order against her as evidence (she supposedly threatened his wife and child): https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing ... redible-at He says he's willing to give more details once he consults a lawyer.


Sounds to me like it's time for the GOP and/or Trump to get a neutral party to investigate the credibility of all of these people. In other words, reopen the background checks by the FBI. And anyone else with accusations needs to speak up now, if they want to be heard. It's not fair to Kavanaugh, his accusers, or us, to have both sides trying to manipulate appearances and emotions instead of looking soberly at the actual evidence and believability of the people involved. Though I suppose that's a futile hope, these days.


Edit: Seems the Hill's story was a bit behind the times, and the Judiciary Committee already dismissed the statements from at least one of two men who claimed he might have attacked Ford. He was apparently "crazy as a loon," according to Lindsay Graham. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/09 ... naugh.html
So perhaps much ado about nothing.

Edit 2: Kavanaugh sure seems to be an evasive guy in the hearings - especially about how much he drank and whether he, a member of a fraternity, ever partied. Methinks he doth protest too much. I'd love to have trained investigators question his friend Mark Judge and anyone else who knew him in college. I'm not impressed by how he's handling the accusations, whether or not he did what any of these women claim. I caught a bit of it before I found myself wanting to strangle both the Republican and Democratic senators and gave up. They do love the sound of their own voices.

Trump is, of course, very happy with Kavanaugh's testimony. No surprise. https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... house-says

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 28 Sep , 2018 1:29 pm
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I'm not sure how the GOP can ignore this and maintain any credibility in the process of appointing someone to the supreme court.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/408 ... vote-until
Quote:
The American Bar Association (ABA) on Thursday called on the Senate Judiciary Committee to postpone a vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court until the FBI can investigate accusations of sexual assault against him.

...“We make this request because of ABA’s respect for the rule of law and due process under law,” Carlson’s letter obtained by the media reads. “The basic principles that underscore the Senate’s constitutional duty of advice and consent on federal judicial nominees require nothing less than a careful examination of the accusations and facts by the FBI.”

...Senate Republicans announced Thursday night that they were planning to move forward with a Friday morning committee vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination.
I'm sure some of them will claim the ABA is biased, but I have no idea how they will explain away the fact that the ABA initially rated Kavanaugh well qualified for the position.

I expect the ABA saw what I saw - someone who had implausible explanations for things written in old yearbooks, avoided answering questions directly, uses "evidence" that didn't actually refute the accusation (whether he's a virgin has absolutely nothing to do with the things he's accused of doing), and couldn't control his temper or emotions as a professional giving testimony.


https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... inated-him
Quote:
Trump: Kavanaugh showed 'exactly why I nominated him'
Can't argue with that.



https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... pecies-act
Quote:
A House panel passed four GOP-backed bills Thursday to amend the Endangered Species Act (ESA), making compliance easier for industries, states and landowners.

The Natural Resources Committee’s bills would give priority to science submitted by state and local governments when federal officials decide whether to protect species, require the Interior Department to consider conservation actions that could happen in the future when making ESA decisions and let Interior prioritize or discharge petitions for species protections under some circumstances.

Taken as a whole, the bills would represent the biggest changes to the ESA in decades.


EDIT to add:
Yale law school, Kavanaugh's alma mater, is also calling for a delay and investigation now:
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/408 ... naugh-vote
This article also mentions that the Trump administration is weaseling to try to deny the ABA -
Quote:
White House Spokesman Raj Shah... [said] "The ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary is separate and independent from its parent organization and has rated Judge Kavanaugh unanimously well-qualified. That hasn't changed," he said.
I can't wait to see how the ABA responds to this.


Some Republican governors are also calling for a delay:
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/408 ... te-pending
Quote:
Multiple Republican governors called on the Senate to delay its confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to allow for an investigation of sexual misconduct allegations leveled against him. The governors of Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio and Vermont, who all serve in blue or swing states, called for the delay Wednesday or Thursday, according to The Associated Press.

The editorial board at The Jesuit Review has withdrawn its support for Kavanaugh after the hearings:
https://www.americamagazine.org/politic ... -withdrawn
Quote:
Evaluating the credibility of these competing accounts is a question about which people of good will can and do disagree. The editors of this review have no special insight into who is telling the truth. If Dr. Blasey’s allegation is true, the assault and Judge Kavanaugh’s denial of it mean that he should not be seated on the U.S. Supreme Court. But even if the credibility of the allegation has not been established beyond a reasonable doubt and even if further investigation is warranted to determine its validity or clear Judge Kavanaugh’s name, we recognize that this nomination is no longer in the best interests of the country. While we previously endorsed the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh on the basis of his legal credentials and his reputation as a committed textualist, it is now clear that the nomination should be withdrawn.

...Even if one thinks that Dr. Blasey's allegations are not credible, demonstrating them not to be would require further investigations and testimony. This would include calling additional witnesses and assessing further allegations against Judge Kavanaugh from other women, to which Republicans on the committee have been unwilling to commit and which would be divisive in any case.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/408 ... mark-judge
Quote:
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected an effort by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) to subpoena Mark Judge in a party line vote...But Grassley read a letter that Judge sent the committee on Thursday. Judge says in the letter that he "never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes."


btw, there's an interesting editorial in The Atlantic from a couple of days ago:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... rt/571462/
It suggests that both Republicans and Democrats consider not picking every single SCOTUS nominee from Yale or Harvard - as was the case until their recent concentration on those 2 law schools alone - and argues that outside perspectives would be valuable.



I wonder what we're going to find out from this:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... with-trump
Quote:
An Indiana judge has ordered the governor's office to release emails between Vice President Mike Pence, from his time as governor in the state, and then-President elect Trump regarding a deal with Carrier Corporation.

Marion County Judge Heather Welch gave Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb (R), who replaced Vice President Mike Pence as governor when he became the vice president, 30 days to deliver the documents, siding with Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, which first requested the emails in December 2016, according to USA Today.


https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying ... -the-floor
Quote:
House Democrats' efforts to force a vote on a measure that would protect special counsel Robert Mueller was defeated on the floor Thursday.


EDIT 2:
Seems it's up to Trump now:
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/408 ... -committee
Quote:
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination on Friday after Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) secured a deal to delay a floor vote on the nomination for a week.
The article has no details yet but it seems that Flake agreed to vote yes on advancing the nomination.... but says he will vote no on the floor unless there's an FBI investigation of the allegations against Kavanaugh, to last no more than a week. My guess is that the GOP saw the writing on the wall if they pushed this through against the will of the ABA and others. Now the question is whether they can persuade Trump to call for an FBI investigation. Probably depends on what Fox news said this morning.


EDIT:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... ter-senate
Quote:
President Trump will authorize the FBI to conduct a supplemental background investigation into Judge Brett Kavanaugh regarding multiple sexual misconduct against the Supreme Court nominee, according to CNN.
Hallelujah. This needed to happen or the partisan divisions were going to get even deeper and uglier.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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