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You've been Trumped!

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 19 Oct , 2017 12:38 pm
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Thanks, Frelga. I'll have to go look when I have time.

From a few days ago, an article from The Atlantic about how Facebook feeds may have contributed to splitting people into separate groups that see only news reinforcing their own worldviews. And how that may have influenced last election and also the predictions that Clinton would win. I found it fascinating but, be warned, it's long.
Quote:
What Facebook Did to American Democracy

And why it was so hard to see it coming
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ ... id/542502/

I actually wasn't sure whether to post this in this thread or the one about echo chambers.

_________________

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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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 19 Oct , 2017 12:47 pm
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aninkling wrote:
I found it fascinating but, be warned, it's long.
That blurb could could be attached to almost anything The Atlantic publishes. :)
Quote:
see only news reinforcing their own worldview
You hear this about Facebook a lot, but honestly, I see a huge mix. My complaint isn't that it's monolithic, it's that it's all tabloid-level clickbaity junk. Except when someone shares something from The Atlantic, of course.


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 19 Oct , 2017 12:51 pm
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This one is especially long. :)

And it's more than that, Dave. One excerpt from the article:
Quote:
When I was editor in chief of Fusion, we set about trying to track the “digital campaign” with several dedicated people. What we quickly realized was that there was both too much data—the noisiness of all the different posts by the various candidates and their associates—as well as too little. Targeting made tracking the actual messaging that the campaigns were paying for impossible to track. On Facebook, the campaigns could show ads only to the people they targeted. We couldn’t actually see the messages that were actually reaching people in battleground areas. From the outside, it was a technical impossibility to know what ads were running on Facebook, one that the company had fought to keep intact.
And:
Quote:
About two years after Pariser published his book, Facebook took over the news-media ecosystem. They’ve never publicly admitted it, but in late 2013, they began to serve ads inviting users to “like” media pages. This caused a massive increase in the amount of traffic that Facebook sent to media companies. At The Atlantic and other publishers across the media landscape, it was like a tide was carrying us to new traffic records. Without hiring anyone else, without changing strategy or tactics, without publishing more, suddenly everything was easier.

While traffic to The Atlantic from Facebook.com increased, at the time, most of the new traffic did not look like it was coming from Facebook within The Atlantic’s analytics. It showed up as “direct/bookmarked” or some variation, depending on the software. It looked like what I called “dark social” back in 2012. But as BuzzFeed’s Charlie Warzel pointed out at the time, and as I came to believe, it was primarily Facebook traffic in disguise.
Breitbart, Bannon, Russia etc also come into the mix. For instance,
Quote:
Steve Bannon was confident in the operation. “I wouldn’t have come aboard, even for Trump, if I hadn’t known they were building this massive Facebook and data engine,” Bannon told them. “Facebook is what propelled Breitbart to a massive audience. We know its power.”

_________________

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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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 19 Oct , 2017 4:33 pm
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Finally had a chance to read it now that it's lunchtime. Hard to know what to say. The internet has always been an anarchic place, and now we're all living there. Human behavior didn't evolve to function in this sort of environment...


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 19 Oct , 2017 4:54 pm
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And the power it puts into the hands of people who know how to manipulate the system...

Apparently, Facebook is working on solutions, but I admit to some skepticism that they will work.



btw, the internet as a major source of social interaction worries me in general. We evolved in an environment where we got cues from things like facial expressions and repeated small interactions with the same people. It's OK when you step away from the keyboard and smartphone and regularly interact with the real world. But what about those who do most of their interacting online and have grown up this way?

_________________

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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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 19 Oct , 2017 5:07 pm
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I expect we'll develop ways to deal with it eventually, as long as we don't wreck the world first. People didn't evolve to deal with mass print media either. It's not a perfect parallel, but that environment was filled with fake news and anonymous libel too in the early days. We eventually achieved some sort of sensible equilibrium there; maybe we'll manage to do that here too...


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 20 Oct , 2017 4:58 pm
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Both Bush and Obama speak out.

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/ ... l-on-trump
Quote:
On Thursday, former President George W. Bush gave one of the most important and profound speeches in modern presidential history, in remarks almost universally viewed as a warning of the dangers of Donald Trump's presidency — without ever mentioning his name.

In a speech that offered a powerful statement on the core vision of Americanism, Bush warned of the dangers of bullying and prejudice in politics. He warned the nation about nationalism that is distorted into nativism and that divides America from its democratic friends in the world.

...In his call for national unity and racial justice, Bush said bigotry and white supremacy in any form are blasphemy against the American creed and warned against politics that are polluted by conspiracy theories and outright fabrication. He warned of a democratic vision that is under attack from foreign enemies.

...While former President Bush was making his case, former President Barack Obama was making almost exactly the same points in speeches in New Jersey and Virginia with his call for national unity, mutual respect and social progress.
This follows the recent speech by McCain, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and a lot of plain speaking about Trump by Senator Bob Corker, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Both Republicans.

_________________

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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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 20 Oct , 2017 7:17 pm
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I said on HoF that Bush's speech almost made me wish I could vote for him. :D


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 20 Oct , 2017 9:20 pm
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I didn't like Bush one bit (either one, actually), so I'm amazed to find myself wishing we could have him rather than the "daft twerp"* currently in the White House.

*Recent insult of Trump by a U.K. politician. :) Who happens to be Winston Churchill's grandson.... so I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that Trump has thrown Churchill's bust out a window. Amazing, that I could even say that about a US president.

_________________

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 24 Oct , 2017 1:48 pm
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...and Trump was going to drain the swamp:
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/ ... e-contract
Quote:
A small Montana company located in Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's hometown has signed a $300 million contract to help get the power back on in Puerto Rico, The Washington Post reported.

Whitefish Energy had only two full-time employees on the day Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, according to the Post. ... The company now has 280 workers on the island, the Post reported, a majority of whom are subcontractors.

A former senior official at the Energy Department and state regulatory agencies said it was "odd" that Whitefish Energy would be chosen. “The fact that there are so many utilities with experience in this and a huge track record of helping each other out, it is at least odd why [the utility] would go to Whitefish,” Susan F. Tierney said.

Something we should all be asking.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... e-behavior
Quote:
Retired four-star Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey is blasting President Trump for Trump's "inane" behavior amid controversy over the president's call to the widow of a fallen soldier.

“We’re cruising toward a war with North Korea, and for eight days we’ve watched inane behavior by the president, Congresswoman Wilson and the chattering class in Washington,” McCaffrey said in an interview with The Washington Post.

“It really makes me sick, to be honest. I’m sure his phone call with the widow was absolutely disastrous. He wings stuff. He doesn’t have any empathy. But I think there’s a larger issue: What are we doing here?”
I would add the press and their stories about distracting Trump trivia to his list. Honestly, why are people avidly following Trump's feuds with a soldier's wife and his idiotic tweeting about the NFL when there are important issues to be discussed? For starters - North Korea, Iran, Niger, etc. and what the hell is the U.S. foreign policy at the moment anyway or does Trump even have one? What should we do about the EPA essentially dismantling its functions? And many more.

_________________

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 24 Oct , 2017 2:30 pm
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http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... fore-being
Quote:
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) slammed the Trump administration for what she called a "terrible nomination" for a top position in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), saying the pick, who already works for the agency, may have large conflicts of interest.

Gillibrand said in a statement Wednesday that she was "stunned" when she learned that Michael Dourson, President Trump's nominee to head the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Protection, was already serving as an unpaid adviser to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

I have seen many sources who criticize Dourson - he seems to be very clearly on the side of the chemicals industry:
Quote:
Gillibrand, who serves on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that will vote on Dourson, cited his past work in the chemicals industry at the Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment group. Dourson's opponents say the group's research reached beneficial conclusions on chemicals that were out step with other scientists.
Edit: Dr Dourson's page on the EPA, which announces "widespread praise" for him is interesting, if you want to take a look. Three endorsements from scientists, one from the editor of a scientific journal, and two from religious leaders that have nothing to do with science. None from a consumer protection group.
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/widesp ... el-dourson
Don't ask me why ministers have any special say in who gets to regulate chemicals. Only Trump and Pruitt can explain that one.

Last edited by aninkling on Wed 25 Oct , 2017 2:10 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: Wed 25 Oct , 2017 2:05 pm
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In a very unusual move, Senator Flake announces his retirement from the Senate and tells the GOP bluntly that it's on the wrong course with Trump:
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/35 ... fiery-exit
Quote:
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) shocked his colleagues on Tuesday by announcing that he will not run for reelection, saying he can no longer be “complicit” in President Trump’s transformation of the Republican Party.

...“Here’s the bottom line: The path that I would have to travel to get the Republican nomination is a path I’m not willing to take, and that I can’t in good conscience take,” Flake told The Arizona Republic.
“It would require me to believe in positions I don’t hold on such issues as trade and immigration, and it would require me to condone behavior that I cannot condone.”
Full text of Senator Flake's speech:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... on/543846/
A couple of very pointed comments:
Quote:
We must never regard as “normal” the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country—the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institution, the flagrant disregard for truth and decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have been elected to serve.
Quote:
When we remain silent and fail to act when we know that that silence and inaction is the wrong thing to do—because of political considerations, because we might make enemies, because we might alienate the base, because we might provoke a primary challenge, because ad infinitum, ad nauseum—when we succumb to those considerations in spite of what should be greater considerations and imperatives in defense of the institutions and our liberty, we dishonor our principles and forsake our obligations.
But it won't matter - basically, most of the GOP is pandering to Trump. Inside Trump's meeting Tuesday with Republican Senators:
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3570 ... senate-gop
Quote:
Trump largely appeared interested in touting his accomplishments at the meeting, senators told The Hill..... Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) later described the tone of the room as “lighthearted” and “cordial.”
Some aren't pleased, but don't have the guts to speak on the record:
Quote:
... other senators were less amused by the meeting, which they complained lacked substance and focus. “He said the tax cuts are ‘going to be great,’ ” without going into any detail, said one GOP senator who requested anonymity to assess the meeting candidly. He just went on and on, talking about his accomplishments and going off on tangents. It was inane,” the lawmaker added.

...The GOP lawmaker said some of the questions to Trump were so effusive that it sparked the thought, “You’re not in his Cabinet, you don’t need to kiss up to him.”
btw, Trump isn't even cooperating with his own party on a strategy for NAFTA or giving them any information about what he's doing:
Quote:
“He basically asked us to give him room for negotiations,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who added that Trump assured lawmakers, “I can negotiate a good deal.” “He did say something about, ‘I might have to nullify to re-up,’ but I didn’t get specifically, exactly what he meant by that,” she added. “It was vague.”

And Trump gloats and feels vindicated:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... gainst-him
Quote:
President Trump mocked Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) for criticizing him, writing in a tweet that the retiring senator has just an 18 percent approval rating and that his other GOP colleagues offered Trump a standing ovation on Tuesday.

And in case anyone cares, most Republicans have voted to allow forced arbitration clauses for consumers:
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/s ... ation-rule
Quote:
Vice President Pence joined with Senate Republicans to nix a controversial consumer bureau rule banning companies from using forced settlements to resolve disputes with customers.
A contrary view:
Quote:
"Our job is to look out for the people whom we serve, not to look out for Wells Fargo, not to look out for Equinox, not to look out for Wall Street banks, not to look out for corporations who scam consumers," Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said ahead of the vote.
btw, this was done with the Congressional Review Act, not the normal legislative process - so that means we can forget about any future rules that are substantially similar and would restrain banks, etc. - from any future U.S. administration. I'll bet Equifax is celebrating.

_________________

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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Frelga
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 25 Oct , 2017 8:13 pm
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On the bright side, the President is a very intelligent person. We know because he said so himself.

Via CNN.

"President Trump: "I think the press makes me more uncivil than I am… I went to an Ivy League college… I'm a very intelligent person." https://t.co/7TAg6RFiCM"

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 26 Oct , 2017 12:49 pm
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Seems to be a theme with him, lately, like the IQ test competition he bluffed about wanting with Tillerson.

The trouble is that when you can't understand the reasons the military is switching from steam-powered launchers (or that there might be good reasons not to abandon the plan after investing a lot of money in it), you display no ability to understand the nuances of politics and diplomacy, and your staff have been told not to challenge your intelligence with in-depth written reports, well....



FYI, The Atlantic has published the list of countries the White House wouldn't reveal in Trump's latest refugee ban:
https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... es/543933/
Quote:
The Trump administration issued an order Tuesday that resumed the resettlement of refuges in the United States, but said the applications of citizens from 11 “higher-risk” countries would be considered on a case-by-case basis during a new 90-day review period. The administration has so far declined to name the countries officially and publicly but two officials—one from the administration and the other from an advocacy group—separately confirmed that the countries were Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mali, North Korea, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. All of those countries—except North Korea and South Sudan—are predominantly Muslim.

...Henrike Dessaules, the spokeswoman for the International Refugee Assistance Project, told me: “Under current vetting procedures, citizens from those countries already undergo additional security screening. What the administration is doing is effectively pausing these additional security checks.” These security checks, known as security advisory opinions, are already backlogged, she said. Consequently, resettlement from the 11 countries that require these checks will be on hold as well, she 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: Fri 27 Oct , 2017 12:49 pm
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The no-bid contract to Whitefish (where Zinke's son apparently worked a summer job) is under investigation:
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... r-contract
Quote:
Two House committees and a federal watchdog have started investigating a $300 million repair contract that Puerto Rico’s electricity utility signed with a Montana company..

The probes come amid growing questions in Puerto Rico and the mainland about how Whitefish Energy Holdings, which had only two employees before Hurricane Maria decimated the island, got the contract, and how it is managing the task of restoring electricity to millions of residents who have been without power for more than a month.

Whitefish had little experience in repairing electricity infrastructure. Its CEO, Andrew Techmanski, is from the same town as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and the two know each other, but they have denied that Zinke played any role in Whitefish getting the no-bid contract.

...The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is part of Homeland Security, is providing Puerto Rico with the money for its recovery operations and has rules about recovery contracting.

...Numerous officials have called for different investigations into Whitefish’s contract, including congressional Democrats, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló and San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz. Rosselló’s own government is also examining the arrangement.

The Interior Department inspector general is also deciding whether to investigate after receiving a letter from eight House Democrats, spokeswoman Nancy DePaolo said Thursday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... story.html

_________________

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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Frelga
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 27 Oct , 2017 5:03 pm
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But wait, there's more!

"Whitefish contract leaked to @juliannagoldman: govt agencies "in no event shall ... have right to audit or review...cost & profit elements" https://t.co/NX9qx7C9yl"

https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status ... 7476832258

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 27 Oct , 2017 8:34 pm
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Yes, I saw that not long ago and my eyes popped. I think there's also something about the government having no recourse if Whitefish doesn't complete the work on time.

I don't have a link, but FEMA is also NOT HAPPY.
And I suspect we taxpayers will be the ones ultimately paying Whitefish their $300/day per worker contract (+ $80/day for food), via FEMA...


...and in the "bury it by releasing it on a Friday" news:
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... l-monument
Quote:
President Trump told Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) on Friday that he will reduce the size of the state's 1.3 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument.

...Trump met with Zinke on Friday to talk about the status of his monuments review, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in the daily briefing. She said the White House would “release more details" during Trump's December visit, "if not before.”

Bears Ears protects Native American artifacts in southern Utah.

... The Interior Department’s monuments review is controversial. Twnety-six other large monuments designated since 1996 were also subject to an extensive Interior Department review this summer, including Utah's 1.8-million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante monument. Trump also told Hatch he plans to shrink that monument.
I expect other monuments to be on the chopping block later, especially anything Obama touched.


Don't even get me started on the GOP's budget and trickle-down economics tax plan... including the cute sleight of hand where they want to mostly eliminate the 401(k) retirement deduction and make everyone put money into Roth IRAs if they want to save for retirement. Which basically gets the government money now so their plans can look "balanced" but loses the government money in the future. By which time all the perpetrators of this plan will be gone from Congress.

Last edited by aninkling on Fri 27 Oct , 2017 8:59 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: Fri 27 Oct , 2017 8:57 pm
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And just because this is too ironic not to share:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ssault-are
Quote:
The White House’s official position on the women who accused President Trump of sexual harassment is that they are lying, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders affirmed Friday.
Lest we forget his own words:
Quote:
“When you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump says in the recording, which was obtained by the Washington Post and released on Friday. “You can do anything.”

Trump, in a 2005 conversation with a television host that was caught on a live microphone, describes a failed seduction, saying: “I did try and fuck her, she was married,” and says that when he meets beautiful women he feels able to “grab them by the pussy”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ding-women

_________________

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 30 Oct , 2017 1:21 pm
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It looks like Manafort will be the first indictment:
http://thehill.com/homenews/news/357764 ... uthorities
Quote:
News cameras caught Manafort walking into the front door of the FBI's Washington, D.C., field office with his lawyers.
Trump responds:
Quote:
On Sunday, Trump said it isn't a coincidence that news surrounding Mueller's investigation was surfacing at the same time Republicans are pushing tax reform. "All of this 'Russia' talk right when the Republicans are making their big push for historic Tax Cuts & Reform," Trump wrote on Twitter.
"Is this coincidental? NOT!"

Last week, Trump said it is "commonly agreed" he didn't collude with Russia during the 2016 election, instead accusing Hillary Clinton of working with the Kremlin.

Kushner is under a separate investigation, unrelated to his role in Trump's administration, in Maryland.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... apartments
Quote:
Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh is probing a business owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and adviser, over alleged questionable debt collection practices and poor maintenance at several of its properties in that state, according to CNN.

...The report comes nearly three months after New York federal prosecutors subpoenaed the company over its use of a visa program that offers green cards to wealthy foreign investors.
btw, the Puerto Rican govt. has cancelled the Whitefish contract.

_________________

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 31 Oct , 2017 2:59 pm
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Details on the indictments, the plea bargain, and the GOP's attempts at distraction from The Atlantic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ia/544409/
Quote:
Legal experts said the court filings indicate Mueller is running a serious, deliberative, and far-sighted inquiry... The first wave of charges came against two top Trump campaign officials, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates. Their indictment describes a conspiracy to evade taxes and launder at least $75 million of foreign income into the United States from offshore accounts.

....Shortly after the Manafort and Gates indictments went public, President Trump ... dismissed the allegations against his two former staffers, noting the reported activity predated their time on his campaign. [Note from me - Not true. The time period covers his campaign as well.] He also repeated his attempts to shift the focus onto Hillary Clinton.

...Conservative media outlets had embraced a similar theme ... Trump allies seized on reports over the last week that Clinton campaign officials helped fund the controversial Steele dossier in an apparent effort to delegitimize Mueller’s probe. [Note from me: This was after GOP opponents of Trump apparently initiated the Steele dossier during the GOP primaries.] They also rehashed discredited allegations about her involvement in an Obama-era uranium deal that involved Russia.

....However, their efforts would soon be interrupted. Just over an hour after the Manafort indictment went public on Monday, the special counsel’s office revealed that George Papadopoulos, a former foreign-policy adviser for the Trump campaign, had become a cooperating witness. As part of a plea deal, Papadopoulos admitted to lying to federal investigators about his interactions with Russian nationals and their associates during the campaign.

...His indictment offered a trove of new details on the extent of internal Trump campaign discussions about overtures from Moscow’s intermediaries.
Bannon seems to be urging Trump to obstruct justice:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... er-reports
Quote:
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is pressing President Trump to curb special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference, according to a Politico report... According to Politico, Trump considered the idea of ousting Mueller, who was appointed by Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein in May after Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey, shortly after Mueller took over the Russia investigation, but ultimately decided against it.

CNN's Dana Bash also said late Monday that she had been told that Bannon was pushing Trump to take more aggressive action against the special counsel, including withholding documents requested by investigators.

btw, the FBI is also investigating the Whitefish contract. So much for the "nothing to see here" crowd.

_________________

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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