board77

More on Trump Jr's meeting with the Russian lawyer:

His son's first statement - which turned out to be a lie - was apparently drafted aboard Air Force One by Trump's advisers and Trump signed off on it.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ia-meeting

Quote:

President Trump personally signed off on a statement released Saturday by his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., ... which was drafted aboard Air Force One by Trump's advisers.

In the statement, Trump Jr. said: “It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow-up.”

“I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand,” he added.

Some of the reactions by GOP members of Congress to the news:
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/34155 ... -trump-son

Quote:

Senate Finance Committe Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) exclaimed when asked by reporters whether he himself would have attended such a meeting. “No!” Hatch said.

...while Hatch said he wouldn’t have attended the meeting with the Russian lawyer, he called the Trump Jr. story “overblown.”

Quote:

“Anytime you’re in a campaign and you get an offer from a foreign government to help your campaign, the answer is ‘no,’ ” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a Russia hawk who ran against Trump in the GOP presidential primary.

Quote:

Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), an early Trump backer whose Long Island district favored Trump by a 12-point margin, [initially] dismissed a New York Times story about a meeting between Trump Jr. and Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian attorney with ties to the Kremlin, as “a big nothingburger.”
But Zeldin changed his tune on Tuesday after Trump Jr. pre-empted an upcoming New York Times story on Twitter by posting an email chain from last year showing he planned to meet with the Russian source to learn about incriminating opposition research about Clinton ... “I voted for @POTUS last Nov. & want him & USA to succeed, but that meeting, given that email chain just released, is a big no-no,” Zeldin tweeted.

Quote:

One Trump loyalist, Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), described the new round of Russia stories as part of a “great witch hunt” against Trump, his family and his administration.

Quote:

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) praised Trump Jr. for being transparent — echoing comments from the president.

Quote:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) repeatedly sidestepped the issue Tuesday, instead directing reporters’ questions to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is probing Russia’s election interference.

Oh, and there's this guy:
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/ ... n-research

Quote:

Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) on Monday said he would have met with a Russian national who claimed to have harmful information about a political opponent. “Do I think it’s appropriate? I think I probably would have done the same thing,” Yoho told CNN’s “The Situation Room” ... “I mean, it’s opposition research, and, you know, anybody that’s been in an election, you’re always looking to get the upper hand,” Yoho added.

The Atlantic, on the "everybody does it defense". Newt Gingrich seems to be one of the most prominent defenders:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... on/533325/

Quote:

For months, the White House has fervently denied allegations of collusion, with President Trump routinely dismissing Russia stories in the press as "fake news," and calling himself the victim of an historically unprecedented "witch hunt." His Republican defenders have largely followed suit, rejecting the entire collusion narrative as a "hoax," or at least a partisan smear. Now, however, many of Trump's high-profile supporters and surrogates are changing tack. ...

[The revelations that Trump Jr, Kushner and Manafort met a Russian lawyer to get dirt on Clinton]—and the possibility that more is yet to come—have made it increasingly untenable for Trump’s supporters to argue that there is nothing to the collusion story. And so, many have now begun to argue that even if there was collusion of the kind suggested by the Times, it wouldn’t be a crime—or even all that out of the ordinary. Some Trump loyalists are even making the case that it was smart and savvy for the campaign to pursue help from the Russians.

....another source close to the White House, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “If you’re asking how people that are close to the Trump White House are responding, they’re laughing at it,” the source said.

...The message being spread by Trump allies is also coming from White House officials. National security aide Sebastian Gorka argued on MSNBC Tuesday morning that taking such a meeting is “standard political practice,” and said that the meeting had not been organized in good faith.

Seriously, has the US sunk so low that when wrongdoing is uncovered, the person's defenders will cry "But everyone is doing it, and it's OK"? What next - it's OK to steal, because you're not the first to do so? It's as if we're now being run by Al Capone and his mob.


Speaking of which, there's this:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/10/tr ... -servants/

Quote:

Trump’s Trolls Are Waging War on America’s Civil Servants
Alt-right bloggers are singling out government employees deemed hostile to the president’s agenda.

Quote:

Career civil servants often endure stressful working conditions, but in the Trump White House, some of them face online trolling from alt-right bloggers who seek to portray them as clandestine partisans plotting to sabotage the president’s agenda. The online attacks often cite information that appears to be provided by unnamed White House officials or Trump loyalists.

The trend has unnerved the career intelligence analysts, diplomats, security experts, and military officers who are accustomed to operating outside the political arena. Coupled with White House talking points accusing government employees of jeopardizing the country’s security through leaks to the media, the online abuse threatens to damage morale and politicize institutions long seen as impartial and above partisan combat

...The attacks don’t stop with career civil servants or perceived “Obama holdovers.” They also include people hired as political appointees by the Trump administration. A common theme underlying the online attacks is a perceived alignment with McMaster.

This was too funny not to share:
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/ ... lf-control

Quote:

Vice President Pence shared advice Wednesday with a group of students in Chicago on how to be a leader like President Trump, ...

During a speech at the National Student Leadership Conference, Pence said in order for a leader to be like the president, they must listen, be humble, have a character people respect, work to serve others and learn from other leaders.

From The Atlantic,

Quote:

What Exactly Are 'Kremlin Ties'?
Was the lawyer who met Donald Trump Jr. an agent of Moscow or not? A little bit of both, maybe.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... on/533370/

Quote:

Was Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met Trump Jr., an agent of the Kremlin, or an opportunist shilling for a client? She herself has denied connections to the Russian government, and told NBC News that she neither had nor sought damaging information on Clinton. But in fact she need not be one or the other. In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, everyone is potentially “hybrid”: both who they seem to be, and, at the same time, an instrument of the government.

It seems inconceivable that a state would use people like this as its instruments, when it has diplomats, spies, and other professionals at its disposal. But this is pro forma for the Kremlin.

Why was the head of the US Dept of Justice even speaking at an event put on by an anti-LGBT group?
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... lgbt-group

Quote:

The Justice Department is refusing to release Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s address to a controversial religious organization during a closed-door event on Tuesday evening, according to reports. The Daily Beast, CNN and ABC News all reported the Justice Department declined to release Sessions’s remarks to members of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) during the “Summit on Religious Liberty” in Dana Point, Calif.

...The religious organization, which has been labeled an “anti-LGBT hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has faced controversy before.

...The ADF is a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, saying on its website that it “remains committed to promoting in law and culture the truth that marriage is the lifelong union of a man and a woman,” and “a proper view of marriage helps to pull the economically disadvantaged out of poverty, giving hope to the marginalized and downtrodden.”

Because this government was elected and appointed for the specific purpose of discriminating against everyone not white, straight, Christian and male. These things are not unfortunate side effects of the election, they are the reason people voted and still support Trump.

Update: they later released Session's prepared speech. No doubt someone realized that it would look even worse that he was speaking to this group if they didn't:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/13/politics/ ... -released/

Quote:

At a closed-door event Tuesday evening, Attorney General Jeff Sessions revealed that new federal guidance to protect "religious liberty" is on the way "soon." Tuesday's speech to the Alliance Defending Freedom was not open to the press and the Justice Department declined requests to provide Sessions' prepared remarks to the media, but later published the speech on The Federalist Thursday.

..."The department is finalizing this guidance, and I will soon issue it," Sessions said, according to the prepared remarks.

Full text of the published speech:
https://thefederalist.com/2017/07/13/he ... t-lawyers/
As an aside, after reading it, I'm constantly amazed at how some Christians in the US feel like they're under "attack" - in a country where religion is openly promoted by government officials. Only a few days ago, a bunch of evangelists were praying over Trump in the White House. And an atheist stands no chance whatsoever of being elected to president.

Not even China seems very interested in funding new coal power plants any more. But Trump certainly is, and he wants to use UN climate change funds to do it.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... nts-report

Quote:

The Trump administration is angling to use a United Nations climate change adaptation fund to pay for the construction of coal plants instead, Bloomberg News reports.

An official told Bloomberg that the White House is pushing to use the Green Climate Fund, which the U.S. has contributed $1 billion to, for more "clean coal" power plants around the world.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... g-sessions

Quote:

A Washington, D.C., judge on Friday tossed out a jury's conviction and called for a new trial for a protester who laughed during Attorney General Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearing, saying that the government made improper arguments during the initial trial. Desiree Fairooz, a Code Pink activist who was originally convicted of disrupting Sessions’ Senate hearing in May, was given a new trial date of Sept. 1, according to D.C. Superior Court documents.

...Chief Judge Robert E. Morin of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia tossed out the guilty verdict because the government had argued that the laugh itself was enough to warrant it.

... Fairooz maintained that when Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said Sessions’ record of "treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and well-documented" early in the hearing, she couldn't help but laugh.

aninkling wrote:

This was too funny not to share:
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/ ... lf-control

Quote:

Vice President Pence shared advice Wednesday with a group of students in Chicago on how to be a leader like President Trump, ...

During a speech at the National Student Leadership Conference, Pence said in order for a leader to be like the president, they must listen, be humble, have a character people respect, work to serve others and learn from other leaders.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... eting-with

Quote:

Daniel Fagre, a USGS specialist on the impact of climate change on mountain climates, was set to discuss the impact of climate change on the national park with Zuckerberg, Mic reported.

But the Interior Department pulled the plug on the meeting days before it was set to take place. According to Mic, suspicion has risen within the USGS that the meeting was canceled to avoid drawing attention to climate change.

...Despite the cancellation, Zuckerberg wrote about the impact of climate change on Glacier National Park during his visit, warning that, within decades, there may not be any glaciers left in the park

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/17/ti ... es-office/

Quote:

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is downgrading the U.S. campaign against mass atrocities, shuttering the Foggy Bottom office that worked for two decades to hold war criminals accountable, according to several former U.S. officials.

...The decision to close the office comes at a time when America’s top diplomat has been seeking to reorganize the State Department to concentrate on what he sees as key priorities: pursuing economic opportunities for American businesses and strengthening U.S. military prowess. Those changes are coming at the expense of programs that promote human rights and fight world poverty, which have been targeted for steep budget cuts.

...The closure is only the latest, and most serious, setback for the office, which has found sometimes grudging support from Democratic and Republican administrations ... The State Department during the Barack Obama administration also considered downgrading the office and folding it into the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/12/do ... -trump-jr/

Quote:

Democratic congressmen on the House Judiciary Committee want to know why Attorney General Jeff Sessions abruptly settled a money laundering case in May involving the same Russian attorney who met with Donald Trump Jr. during the presidential election to offer “dirt” on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

The civil forfeiture case was filed in 2013 by Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York — who was fired by Trump in March. The case alleged that 11 companies were involved in a tax fraud in Russia and then laundered a portion of the $230 million they got into Manhattan real estate.

...But Instead of proceeding with the trial as scheduled, the Trump Justice Department settled the case two days before it was due to begin. By then, Bharara had already been axed by the president.

Apparently, Trump really likes talking to Putin. They had another private meeting, this one without anyone else besides the Russian translator.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... uring-g-20

Quote:

President Trump held a second, informal talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Hamburg, Germany, earlier this month, the White House confirmed Tuesday.

...According to Tuesday reports, in their second conversation, Trump spoke with the Russian leader for roughly an hour, joined only by Putin's translator. The meeting had previously gone without mention by the administration.

... a White House official appeared to dispute that the discussion lasted an hour, saying the two only spoke "briefly" near the end of the dinner.

...The White House said the two men used the Russian translator to converse because the American translator accompanying President Trump spoke Japanese.

I especially like the bit about Trump being stuck with a Japanese translator, hence having to use Putin's. The Trumps don't even seem to be good at coming up with excuses.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... with-putin

Quote:

President Trump blasted news reports of his private second meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany on Tuesday, calling the stories "fake news."

...A White House official attacked reports of a second meeting as false and said that the two leaders only had a brief conversation at the dinner... "The insinuation that the White House has tried to 'hide' a second meeting is false, malicious and absurd." The official added that the meeting was "perfectly normal" for two world leaders.

No, it isn't "perfectly normal" for the president to talk to Putin privately, without a U.S. translator. The Atlantic also has a discussion of the meeting. In it, they say:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ng/534099/

Quote:

There’s no indication of what happened in the second meeting. White House aides only learned of it from Trump, and there was no official readout of the conversation. But given the collusion questions and the conflicting accounts of the earlier meeting, the content could be important.

...As my colleague James Fallows notes, it is highly unusual for a president to meet with a foreign leader without an interpreter. Typically, an American president would speak in English and his interpreter would then render what he said in Russian. But Harry Obst, who worked as an interpreter for seven presidents, told me that Richard Nixon also sometimes met with foreign leaders without a U.S. interpreter because he distrusted the U.S. State Department, which runs the interpretation program, and worried interpreters would pass along information to the secretary of state.

European leaders don't seem to think this is normal, either:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... putin-talk

Quote:

Ian Bremmer said early Wednesday that the length and "warmth" of an informal talk earlier with month between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was unusual.

...Bremmer said many of the heads of state in the room — including some of America's most important allies — were "quite surprised." "They found it unusual and noteworthy," he said during the interview Wednesday. "The body language, the chemistry, the fact that it went on for so long and the fact that of course, it reflected a much warmer relationship between Trump and Putin than he has with any of the other leaders in the room."

Immigration is bad. Except when it promotes Trump's business interests, of course:

Quote:

Trump’s Interests vs. America’s, Temporary Visa Edition

The federal government is expanding an immigration program that the president’s company often uses to staff its properties.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/ar ... ts/508382/

Quote:

On Monday, the federal government announced that it would be expanding its H-2B temporary-visa program. Citing a lack of Americans willing and qualified to do seasonal, non-agricultural jobs, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) expanded the H-2B program to allow 15,000 additional foreign workers into the country for the summer to meet demand at such seasonal businesses as landscaping services, hotels, and amusement parks. The move roughly mirrors last year’s, when DHS allowed 13,382 workers to come in under the program,

...Though the allowance of more foreign workers may appear to conflict with Trump’s “America First” rhetoric, it clearly aligns with his business interests. The Trump Organization, which the president still owns, uses H-2B workers at many of its golf courses, hotels, and vineyards. ....Mar-a-Lago has requested hundreds of foreign visas, including 70 in 2015 alone, while reportedly rejecting 283 of 300 domestic applicants since 2010.

Off-the-record interviews with Republicans in Congress. Basically, the conclusion is what we've seen already - they're not interested in investigating the Trumps or holding Trump accountable for what he does:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ia/533784/

Quote:

But what do congressional Republicans actually think about the Russia controversy? And what would the investigation have to turn up for members to abandon the president and his agenda en masse? Is a breaking point of that sort even possible—and if so, what would it look like? Over the past week, I’ve put these questions to a wide range of GOP sources on Capitol Hill (granting most of them anonymity in an attempt to elicit more candor). Their answers varied, as did their relative levels of exasperation with Trump’s handling of the Russia affair.

...Capitol Hill Republicans... were willing to allow for the possibility that some Trump campaign officials might have inappropriately cooperated with Russians, but they said the president and his team were simply too incompetent to pull off a high-level House of Cards-style conspiracy. At worst, they seemed to believe Team Trump’s collusion amounted to a “conspiracy of dunces” (as a recent Ross Douthat column termed it)—embarrassing and unseemly, sure, but certainly not so grave as to demand blowing up the entire GOP agenda to address it.

So it seems it's OK if you collude with the Russians (not to mention proposing a joint cybersecurity venture), as long as you aren't very smart.


As the State Dept tried to tell Trump in the report he ignored, his Cuba policies will damage ordinary Cubans, not the military:
http://thehill.com/policy/transportatio ... ark-shadow

Quote:

All around Havana, local Cuban entrepreneurs refer to the day President Trump unveiled his new policy toward the country simply as “June 16." It’s easy to see why the date would be seared into their memories: Private businesses ranging from private car companies to bed-and-breakfasts have already seen an alarming number of cancellations from American travelers since the White House announced it would be tightening travel and commercial ties between the two countries.

They fear the White House policy, which hasn’t even taken effect yet, will have a devastating impact on their lives — even though Trump’s effort was billed as a way to help the free Cuban people working in the country’s growing private sector.

And Der Spiegel has an interesting piece (in English) on the rise of the alt-right in the U.S.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 55901.html

Quote:

In two hours, Yiannopoulos will give one of his now-infamous, mockery-filled speeches outside the City University of New York on 42nd Street.

This time, a Muslim woman named Linda Sarsour will be the target of his attack. Yiannopoulos didn't know who the woman was until recently when he learned that Sarsour was scheduled to be the commencement speaker at the University's graduation ceremony the following week. A crude coalition of orthodox Zionists, anti-Islam activists and Trump fans announced a rally to protest Sarsour's speaking engagement -- and Yiannopoulos, who was forced to resign from the radical right-wing website Breitbart in February after allegedly making statements supporting pedophilia, is anxious to finally return to the spotlight.

It's an interesting piece that explores not just the more public faces of the alt-right, like Yiannopoulos, but also the ties between Trump, Bannon, people who may be providing the money, and the less well-known people promoting their viewpoint on the internet.

For instance,

Quote:

What Yiannopoulos has in common with both Trump and others in the alt-right movement is the conviction that the country's leading media organizations -- the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and NBC, to name a few -- have a liberal bias and have joined forces with academic institutions to transform American society into a dictatorship of good taste, identity politics and minority rights.

The entanglement in this seemingly asymmetrical struggle, in which those on the right are at a disadvantage from the start, is used as justification for their brazen appearances. This too is a fundamentally right wing, but also fundamentally American, theme: the underdog fighting the system and taking the country back.

Donald Trump is an imperfect vehicle for this purpose, but the only one that was available, says Yiannopoulos. As such, Trump is essentially the president of the alt-right movement or at least this is how Bannon explained it to him. Yiannopoulos says that Bannon is perhaps the most intelligent person he has ever met.

Edit: http://www.businessinsider.fr/us/who-is ... ze-2017-7/

Quote:

Irakly "Ike" Kaveladze was the eighth person at Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer, Scott Balber, an attorney representing Kaveladze, confirmed to CNN on Tuesday. Kaveladze was at the meeting as a representative of Aras and Emin Agalarov, the wealthy Russians who first requested the meeting be arranged.

...Kaveladze was implicated in a Russian money-laundering scheme in 2000, during which investigators found that several Russians and Eastern Europeans had formed shell companies and used them to move money through American banks.

...Kaveladze... met with Trump in 2013 when Aras Agalarov brought Trump's Miss Universe pageant to Moscow. (Kaveladze can be seen standing behind Emin Agalarov as he speaks with Trump in a video taken in Moscow in 2013.)

Kaveladze has already been contacted by Mueller.

Another deceptively named bill, which profits the logging industry, has been introduced in the House. It's called the "Resilient Federal Forests Act." (H.R. 2936.) The Wilderness Society has a statement opposing it, but not much about it. Some groups I'm less familiar with do lay out the terms of the bill:
http://www.friendsoftheclearwater.org/r ... t-of-2017/

Quote:

H.R. 2936 would:

Makes road building and logging the highest priority on the National Forests.

Subject millions of acres of roadless wildlands on the National Forests to road-building and logging.

... Do away with the required consultation process between federal agencies regarding protections for species listed under the Endangered Species Act.

This group also link to the text of the bill, but it's very long and complex. You also have to read between the lines and know some background on what's being changed, to see what the GOP is trying to do.

Another group has a more detailed analysis:
http://www.wildcalifornia.org/category/ ... bliclands/
For instance:

Quote:

The bill gives a free pass to lawless logging by exempting logging plans up to 30,000 acres—nearly 47 square miles—that are developed through a “collaborative process” from having to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). By comparison, under the existing law only logging projects 70 acres or less are exempted from NEPA.

Quote:

The bill would prohibit temporary injunctions and preliminary injunctions against “salvage” logging projects, virtually guaranteeing that logging will occur before a court can hear a challenge. The bill prevents plaintiffs from recovering attorneys’ fees if they win.

http://thehill.com/regulation/administr ... egulations

Quote:

White House Budget chief Mick Mulvaney will release on Thursday a report claiming progress on regulatory rollback, a major priority of the Trump administration.

...Critics have charged that some of the regulatory rollbacks have come at a cost to the environment, consumer protections, and health. For example, the Bureau of Land Management is proposing a repeal of a regulation for hydraulic fracturing, also called fracking, which the administration says is duplicative, and the Environmental Protection Agency is giving up regulations on oil and gas development in the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservations in Utah.

Republican leadership is not allowing the House to vote on limiting Trump's war authorization powers:
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/34214 ... g-in-house

Quote:

A push to include a new war authorization in a House spending bill appears to have hit a roadblock, while a separate provision forcing Congress to discuss a new war authorization was stripped from the chamber's annual defense policy bill this week.

That war authorization, passed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as well as a 2002 authorization for the Iraq War have together been used more than 37 times in the last 16 years by the past three presidents to justify military action in 14 countries, including the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

GOP leadership is not pleased with the language, despite the measure being surprisingly backed by both Republicans and Democrats when it was voted into the House defense spending bill in late June..

A shorter piece yesterday, after Ryan stripped the amendment.
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/34266 ... democratic

Quote:

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) blasted Speaker Paul Ryan late Tuesday, saying the Wisconsin Republican "stripped" her Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) repeal amendment in the "dead of night."

Apparently, we can blame Trump (and his threats) that the Senate keeps going back to their deeply unpopular efforts to either repeal Obamacare completely, or replace it with a bill that appeases the Tea Party but bothers moderate Republicans. Meanwhile, there's no effort to work with Democrats, physicians or others to fix Obamacare's flaws. And insurance companies are requesting double digit increases on premiums in the exchanges next year.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... o-his-will

Quote:

Trump himself had urged Republicans to take up repeal-and-delay legislation, but changed his tune during a lunch with senators at the White House on Wednesday, where he warned them against abandoning the original bill.

...The president appeared to scold Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who sat beside him, saying the Nevadan “wants to remain a senator.” Heller had been among the Republicans holding out against the McConnell legislation. Trump also struck an ominous note for any GOP senator who might vote against a motion to proceed on the legislation, saying that doing so was tantamount to support for ObamaCare.

...CNN also reported that Trump loyalists Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie had been dispatched to add some extra muscle to the effort on Capitol Hill. Lewandowski was Trump’s first campaign manager. Bossie was deputy campaign manager in the final months of the presidential campaign.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... al/534282/

Quote:

President Trump strongly criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the upper ranks of the Justice Department on Wednesday, telling The New York Times he would never have chosen Jeff Sessions as attorney general if he knew Sessions was going to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

...In the interview, Trump also lashed out at Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, ...Trump told the Times that Mueller would cross a red line if his inquiry “expanded to look at his family’s finances beyond any relationship to Russia,” and expressed frustration that Rosenstein had recommended that former FBI Director James Comey be fired and then appointed Mueller, who in his role as special counsel is now said to be looking into whether or not that firing amounted to obstruction of justice.

Transcript of the interview is here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/us/p ... cript.html
There are some things not covered in the news reports. For instance, this sounds like he doesn't necessarily support the pre-existing conditions clause of Obamacare. Though it's hard to tell, sometimes, what he thinks. He's not exactly a coherent, clear communicator.

Quote:

"Nothing changes. Nothing changes. Once you get something for pre-existing conditions, etc., etc. Once you get something, it’s awfully tough to take it away."

...So pre-existing conditions are a tough deal. Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan. Here’s something where you walk up and say, “I want my insurance.”

And some of his delusions are on display:

Quote:

"I have had the best reviews on foreign land. So I go to Poland and make a speech. Enemies of mine in the media, enemies of mine are saying it was the greatest speech ever made on foreign soil by a president. I’m saying, man, they cover [garbled]"

Reporter defies the White House's efforts to keep its press briefings from being heard by the public:
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/34282 ... s-briefing

Quote:

White House reporter Ksenija Pavlovic defied the White House's restrictions on reporters recording live audio coverage by streaming a live recording of a press briefing on Wednesday, the Washington Post reports. Pavlovic, who reports from the White House for her own news site, Pavlovic Today, used the Periscope app to stream the audio from the briefing and shared a link to the feed on her Twitter account.

...The White House has banned live audio and video coverage at every press briefing since June 29.

..."We get to listen to the briefing; they just won't let you listen to the briefing," Fox News anchor Shepard Smith said during his channel's broadcast. "It's the White House rules, not ours."

Sorry to be blunt, but it seems that some Americans are just stupid:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... th-russian

Quote:

The poll from the left-leaning Public Policy Polling found that only 45 percent of Trump voters said they believe that Trump Jr. went to the meeting, even after he released an email chain proving that he was eager to receive potential dirt from the Russian government on his father's campaign rival Hillary Clinton at the meeting. Thirty-two percent of the Trump supporters said they don’t believe the meeting took place, while 24 percent said they aren’t sure, according to the poll results.

On the topic of Russia in general, 72 percent of Trump voters said stories about Russia are “fake news,” with less than a quarter of the voters thinking that there should be a probe into potential collusion with Russia.

... 77 percent of the Trump voters said they think Trump should stay in office even if the campaign did collude with Russia.

Edits: fixed an error and added a link to the transcript of the interview.

According to The Atlantic, the "voter fraud" investigation commission looks to be as bad as its critics feared:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ck/534084/

Quote:

Trump's Voter-Fraud Commission Has Its First Meeting
The Kris Kobach-led effort faces at least seven federal lawsuits and claims of voter suppression as it moves to set its agenda.

...The meeting served mostly as a way to air out opening statements from commissioners and set the future agenda. ...Kobach and the highest-profile members of the commission, however, kept a sharp focus on fraud.

...The high-profile members relied on rhetorical sleight of hand to keep fraud at the forefront of the commission meeting. For one, people like von Spakovsky and Kobach constantly conflated data on phenomena like double voting and double registrations—which are rare among the billions of votes cast in the last two decades, but not unknown—with in-person impersonation and fraudulent voting by noncitizens, of which almost no hard data exists. Then they used those claims, which were presented as hard facts, as evidence for the need for an open-minded, “hard, dispassionate look at this subject,” as Kobach stated. But it seems the commission has already made up its mind, and has plans to act.

Also, from The Atlantic,
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... il/534168/

Quote:

The Bipartisan Opposition to Sessions's New Civil-Forfeiture Rules

Attorney General Jeff Sessions rolled back a series of Obama-era curbs on civil-asset forfeiture on Wednesday, strengthening the federal government’s power to seize cash and property from Americans without first bringing criminal charges against them.

Trump and cronies continue their efforts to deny climate change:
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... ree-to-top

Quote:

President Trump has nominated a well-known climate change skeptic to the top science job at the Department of Agriculture.

...Clovis, who does not have a science degree, according to a Washington Post report, takes over a position that it said has generally has gone to someone with an advanced degree in science or medicine. If confirmed by the Senate, he would serve as the USDA’s chief scientist, coordinating the department’s research and education policies and ensuring the “scientific integrity” of the research done at the department.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... imate-work

Quote:

A senior Interior Department official has filed a whistleblower complaint against Trump administration political appointees, claiming he was reassigned within Interior because of his work on climate change. ...“I believe I was retaliated against for speaking out publicly about the dangers that climate change poses to Alaska Native communities,” Clement wrote in a Washington Post op-ed on Wednesday.

... Clement was one of three dozen career officials reassigned to new positions by Interior Department leadership in mid-June.

Political appointees like Zinke are legally allowed to reassign members of the Senior Executive Service (SES), a position Clement held.

Op-ed from Clement:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html

Quote:

Nearly seven years ago, I came to work for the Interior Department, where, among other things, I’ve helped endangered communities in Alaska prepare for and adapt to a changing climate. But on June 15, I was one of about 50 senior department employees who received letters informing us of involuntary reassignments. Citing a need to “improve talent development, mission delivery and collaboration,” the letter informed me that I was reassigned to an unrelated job in the accounting office that collects royalty checks from fossil fuel companies.

I am not an accountant — but you don’t have to be one to see that the administration’s excuse for a reassignment such as mine doesn’t add up. A few days after my reassignment, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke testified before Congress that the department would use reassignments as part of its effort to eliminate employees; the only reasonable inference from that testimony is that he expects people to quit in response to undesirable transfers. Some of my colleagues are being relocated across the country, at taxpayer expense, to serve in equally ill-fitting jobs.

Busy news day:

So Mueller is looking into Trump's business dealings with Russia:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... obe-report

Quote:

Robert Mueller is looking into President Trump's business transactions as part of the ongoing probe into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russians who sought to influence the 2016 election, according to a Thursday report in Bloomberg.

...Bloomberg reports the counsel is probing purchases from Russian buyers at Trump properties, the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, a SoHo development involving Russian associates, and Trump's 2008 sale of a Florida mansion to a Russian oligarch.

details here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ansactions
The investigation also involve Kushner's financing for his real estate deals, as well as the tracks of the money-laundering probe.


http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... -tillerson

Quote:

The Treasury Department on Thursday fined Exxon Mobil Corp. $2 million for violating sanctions against Russia while now-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was CEO of the company.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/34290 ... ation-rule

Quote:

More than a dozen Republican senators, including every GOP member of the Senate Banking Committee, introduced a resolution Thursday morning to repeal the CFPB rule under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). GOP lawmakers on the House Financial Services Committee announced they’d introduce an identical resolution soon after. No Democrats joined either effort.

The new CFPB rule forces companies to write arbitration clauses in ways that wouldn’t prevent consumers from joining class-action lawsuits. It also forces financial firms to hand over information about “initial claims and counterclaims, answers to these claims and counterclaims, and awards issued in arbitration.”

If there's any reasonable person left who doesn't think Trump is guilty of anything illegal, his latest actions should cast some doubt. In the past, he's managed to bully anyone who tried to oppose him or threatened his interests. Clearly, he's trying to do that again.

It boggles the mind that a possible criminal might have the potential to shut down the people investigating him. Or pardon himself.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... on/534447/

Quote:

The New York Times reported Thursday that Trump’s private legal team is scouring the backgrounds of Mueller and his prosecutors for potential conflicts of interest and damaging information to be used against them. According to the Times, that research is part of a broader effort by Trump to curtail and discredit the former FBI director’s probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.

...The Post also reported Trump has asked advisers about his ability to issue pardons and whether he could use it to shield “aides, family members, or even himself” from Mueller’s inquiry.

Another article in the Atlantic that explores what Trump could do, and whether any of it is legal.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... er/534459/

Quote:

The Trump team seems to be targeting Mueller from two angles. The first is conflicts of interest. ... But the Justice Department has explicit rules for what constitutes an improper conflict. It doesn’t appear that what the Trump team has come up with so far—Mueller’s conversation with Trump, or political donations by members of his team—would meet the standards in that policy.

The second tack is to try to prevent Mueller from moving into areas Trump doesn’t want him to explore.... Rosenstein’s letter appointing Mueller seems to offer the prosecutor a great deal of leeway, including authorizing “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”

Take the Trump team’s warnings to Mueller to stick to Russia. The problem is that, as Trump surely knows, business doesn’t stop neatly at international borders.

The Atlantic also asks whether there are any GOP members left with principles, who will act if Trump does.
https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/ ... re/534450/

Quote:

Yet for now Trump has the legal power, directly or indirectly, to dismiss Mueller, if the investigation gets too close to Trump’s obviously sensitive financial concerns. And Trump himself, unaware of history and oblivious to rules, norms, and constraints, has given every indication that this will be his next step.

What happens then? Brian Beutler, of the New Republic, has just put up a bleak scenario, arguing that there really are no guardrails... “At the moment there are no reliable sources of accountability,” Beutler writes. “None.”

There are 52 Americans who have it within their power to prove that dark assessment wrong. Really, it would take a subset of just three of those 52. With the 52-48 current party lineup in the U.S. Senate, a switch of three votes of conscience is all it would take to have this branch of government fulfill its checks-and-balances function.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... gns-report

Quote:

The chief spokesman for President Trump’s personal legal team, Mark Corallo, has resigned. Corallo confirmed his resignation in an email to The Hill.

Politico reported Thursday that his resignation was due to growing frustration with operation and warring factions, as well as concerns over whether he was being told the truth.

White House spokesperson Sean Spicer has also resigned after Trump hired Anthony Scaramucci as his new communications director.



And the voter "fraud" commission's tactics are already having a detrimental effect on voting.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... on/533766/

Quote:

From the moment the president announced the creation of a panel to examine voter fraud and elections, voting-rights advocates warned that the real purpose of the commission was to suppress lawful votes. Then a series of reports from around the country over the last two weeks played directly into those fears, as voting officials in several states said citizens had been calling and asking to have their registrations canceled, rather than turned over to the commission as part of a huge request for data. Instances popped from Florida to Washington state and North Carolina to Colorado.

The good news is that so far there don’t actually seem to be that many cases of voters actually canceling, with most of them concentrated in Colorado—though nearly 4,000 people have withdrawn there, enough to swing a close election.

I have to admit that the thought crossed my mind, too, but our state told Kobach that he was welcome to buy the public information like anyone; they weren't going to get private info like our social security numbers.


More on Zuckerberg's visit to Glacier National Park and the efforts to stop him from speaking with people about climate change.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pow ... uckerberg/

Quote:

But days before the tech tycoon’s visit, the Trump administration abruptly removed two of the park’s top climate experts from a delegation scheduled to show him around, telling a research ecologist and the park superintendent that they were no longer going to participate in the tour.

The decision to micromanage Zuckerberg’s stop in Montana from 2,232 miles east in Washington, made by top officials at the Interior Department, the National Park Service’s parent agency, was highly unusual — even for a celebrity visit.

At this rate, the man's actions in response to the investigation are going to wind up being more provably illegal than the ones being investigated in the first place.

Could be. What I'm most curious about is what illegalities will be uncovered when investigators "follow the money" on Trump's business deals. He clearly thinks himself above the law and I doubt that attitude started when he became president.



This could be bad, combined with Session's instructions to pursue maximum criminal penalties for any drug offense unless attorneys get special permission.
http://thehill.com/regulation/administr ... -marijuana

Quote:

The Trump administration is readying for a crackdown on marijuana users under Attorney General Jeff Sessions. President Trump’s Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, led by Sessions, is expected to release a report next week that criminal justice reform advocates fear will link marijuana to violent crime and recommend tougher sentences for those caught growing, selling and smoking the plant.

Quote:

Sessions sent a letter in May asking congressional leaders to do away with an amendment to the DOJ budget prohibiting the agency from using federal funds to prevent states "from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana."

More evidence (not that we need it) of Trump's view that everyone must be loyal to him and dissent or criticism is not allowed:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... on-my-back

Quote:

President Trump targeted some unnamed members of his party in a tweet on Sunday, saying that "sad" Republicans who benefited from his electoral coattails in the 2016 election now won't "protect" him.

"It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President," Trump tweeted.

btw, Colorado monuments seem to be safe for now. So far, Zinke has recommended gutting Bear's Ears and allowing logging in Katahdin Woods.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... ent-status

Quote:

The Interior Department will not recommend changes to the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado, the agency announced Friday.

OMG - It looks like Trump has put "staffers" (Bannon, Miller, Gorka? ) in charge of Iran policy, with a mandate to come up with a way to deny that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear deal.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/21/tr ... epartment/

Quote:

After a contentious meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this week, President Donald Trump instructed a group of trusted White House staffers to make the potential case for withholding certification of Iran at the next 90-day review of the nuclear deal. The goal was to give Trump what he felt the State Department had failed to do: the option to declare that Tehran was not in compliance with the contentious agreement.

FP spoke with three sources who were either invited to take part in the new process or were briefed on the president’s decision on certification. ... Trump “is resolved to not recertify deal in 90 days,” said a second source with detailed knowledge of this week’s meeting and the aftermath.

...On Monday morning, work was on track for the administration to again certify that Iran was meeting the necessary conditions, but the president expressed second thoughts around midday. A meeting between Trump and Tillerson that afternoon quickly turned into a meltdown. A third source with intimate knowledge of that meeting said Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist, and Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the president, were particularly vocal

So now Trump is trying to deliberately destroy treaties, even if the other party is upholding their part of the bargain? This seems very, very bad for any future international agreements. Why would anyone deal with the US if its leaders won't bargain in good faith?

I guess that's why Trump is gutting the State Dept. He wants sole authority over international affairs, together with a bunch of people with no diplomatic experience and "alt right" views. And after reading his interview with the New York Times, I'm even more worried about this - his answers there were uninformed and sometimes barely coherent.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... cking-rule

Quote:

The Trump administration is proposing to completely repeal Obama-era standards governing hydraulic fracturing on federal land. The proposal from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is due to be published Tuesday in the Federal Register.

The landmark 2015 regulation set standards in areas such as disclosure of fracking chemicals and integrity of well casing. It was the Obama administration’s attempt to update decades-old regulations to account for the explosive growth in fracking for oil and natural gas in recent years.

... The BLM did not indicate that it intends to replace the rule

I assume there will be a public comments period when this is published.


EDIT: Link to proposal for public comments:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documen ... -2015-rule

To be honest, I'm not sure how much good it will do. This rule was fought by the fracking industry, which won the initial court battle in a Wyoming court. The Obama administration appealed, but the Trump administration has dropped that appeal. Still, it's probably worth commenting, just so they know people won't acquiesce quietly to all their efforts to roll back environmental protections.

A couple of interesting aspects of the Obamacare repeal efforts:

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/34 ... re-process

Quote:

Key senators on Monday expressed unhappiness with the way the healthcare debate has been handled in the Senate on the eve of a critical procedural vote that could bury the Republican measure. The senators representing different sides of the GOP conference said they are frustrated to not know the direction of the healthcare legislation — or even what they might be voting to proceed towards on Tuesday.

...The Senate is set to vote on a motion to proceed to the ObamaCare repeal-and-replace bill approved by the House, but leaders have not said which bill the Senate will then take up. It could be a clean ObamaCare repeal with a two-year delay, or a repeal-and-replace bill that has fractured the GOP conference..

The article also says:

Quote:

Several stopped short of threatening to withhold support from their leaders, however

This is why I have NO sympathy for much of the GOP (or many Democrats, for that matter). If you're nothing but a sheep who refuses to think for yourself or stand up for your principles, you shouldn't be making the laws.


The parliamentarian has thrown a monkey wrench into the GOP plans:
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/34 ... gop-repeal

Quote:

Ahead of a crucial vote Tuesday, Republicans are working to revise their ObamaCare repeal-and-replace bill after the Senate parliamentarian said some provisions would need 60 votes in order to be included in the measure.

These provisions include language that defunds Planned Parenthood for a year, a lockout provision aimed at ensuring people don’t just sign up for insurance plans when they’re sick and a ban on tax credits going toward plans that cover abortion.

The term "lockout provision," last I heard, meant that if you don't buy health insurance and get sick, you either get to pay for your entire care yourself, die, or hope you survive for 6 months until you're allowed to buy health insurance.


Remember all those cries of "It's all the fault of the Democrats' nasty rhetoric" and "tone things down" after the shootings at the baseball game? It seems that some of those same members of Congress think that ugly, misleading rhetoric is perfectly fine if it serves their own cause.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/34 ... hooting-ad

Quote:

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) released a new ad for his Senate campaign Monday that uses audio from the June shooting that injured House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.)

... Brooks’s new ad opens with the sound of five gunshots ringing out at last month’s practice for Republican lawmakers before the annual Congressional Baseball Game. As the audio plays, text emerges on the screen linking the shooter to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose presidential campaign he volunteered for. “June 14: A Bernie Sanders supporter fires on Republican congressmen. Mo Brooks gives his belt as a tourniquet to help the wounded,” the text on the screen reads.

Then, Brooks is shown speaking with reporters at the shooting. The ad characterizes the interview as coming from the “liberal media” as a reporter asks Brooks whether the shooting changed his views on guns.

btw, there are rumors that Tillerson is also considering quitting. Besides the latest episode where Trump wanted him to twist the truth and let Trump deny Iran is complying with the treaty, Tillerson is also reported to be frustrated that his choices for State Dept positions keep getting denied when they're either Republicans who didn't support Trump, or Democrats.

House Republicans, lobbied by banks, have voted to block a new rule, from the Consumer Protection Bureau, that would stop banks from preventing their customers from joining action lawsuits. One Representative, Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), even had the gall to call the CPB's rule an "anti-consumer" rule .

The House did this with the Congressional Review Act - so their act would prevent any future administration from imposing a substantially similar rule on banks and credit card companies. It now goes to the Senate.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/34365 ... ureau-rule

Quote:

Lawmakers voted 231-190 to repeal the rule using the Congressional Review Act, a law that allows Congress to eliminate regulations within 60 days of their release and bars agencies from issuing similar rules in the future. Only one Republican, Rep. Walter Jones (N.C.), joined Democrats in voting against repeal.

The repeal resolution will now move to the Senate. Republicans will need near-unanimous support from their slim majority to pass it in the upper chamber. President Trump is expected to sign the bill if it reaches his desk. The White House said Monday it “strongly supports” the repeal effort.

...The rule forces companies to write arbitration clauses included in contracts in ways that would not prevent consumers from joining class-action lawsuits.

...The CFPB announced its intent to issue an arbitration rule last year, following reports on the potential harms to consumers from arbitration clauses, including being prevented from joining class-action lawsuits. “Arbitration clauses in contracts for products like bank accounts and credit cards make it nearly impossible for people to take companies to court when things go wrong,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said at the time.

More assaults on the environment. An opinion piece by a Minnesota House representative:
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/ ... minnesotas

Quote:

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, located in northern Minnesota, is one of the last truly wild places in America. These 1.1 million acres of unspoiled woodlands and more than 1,000 pristine lakes are protected by the U.S. Forest Service, and are beloved by adventurers, canoers, and sportsmen from across the United States and around the world... But new legislation in Congress, proposed by Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), endangers this fragile ecosystem and the dynamic outdoor recreation economy it supports.

Emmer’s legislative proposal, which will be considered by a House Natural Resources subcommittee this week, undermines bedrock environmental and public lands laws to enable the Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta PLC to build a massive sulfide-ore copper mine in the Superior National Forest adjacent to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Trump chooses a new ethics chief expected to be nicer to him and weaken the Office of Government Ethics.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... sen-ethics

Quote:

President Trump's pick to lead the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) [David Apol] has clashed with outgoing chief Walter Shaub over how rigidly the agency enforces conflict-of-interest laws and other policies, according to a new report.

...One associate general counsel with OGE said that Apol's rulings were often more "permissive" than what OGE policy allows.

McCain wants the Senate to return to passing bipartisan legislation on important bills like healthcare:
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3437 ... ery-speech

Quote:

“Let’s trust each other. Let’s return to regular order. We’ve been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle," McCain said from the Senate floor.

... he urged leadership to throw its weight behind crafting a bipartisan healthcare bill, despite intense pressure from the White House for GOP senators to go it alone and fulfill their yearslong campaign pledge of repealing ObamaCare. "Why don’t we try the old way of legislating in the Senate, the way our rules and customs encourage us to act? If this process ends in failure, which seem likely, then let’s return to regular order," McCain said.

...McCain appeared to implicitly counter Trump's advice for Republicans to go it alone in his floor speech, when he said the current strategy didn't appear to be working.

Trump will not be happy.


btw, Trump gave a speech to the Boy Scouts - who are too young to vote - talking about his usual themes - "fake news," Clinton, loyalty to himself, etc., and criticism of former president Obama. http://uk.businessinsider.com/trump-boy ... ?r=US&IR=T

For instance,

Quote:

"Do you remember that famous night on television, November 8, where they said, these dishonest people, where they said, 'There is no path to victory for Donald Trump'?" Trump said while pointing at what appeared to be media members. "Do you remember that incredible night with the maps, and the Republicans are red and the Democrats are blue, and that map was so red it was unbelievable, and they didn't know what to say."

"We worked hard" in Michigan, Trump said, a state where Democrat Hillary Clinton lost. "You know, my opponent didn't work hard there because she was told she was gonna win Michigan."

He even assumed that the kids were there solely to see him, instead of being there for a Boy Scout conference. I would be willing to bet that opting out of seeing Trump was not an option.

Quote:

"I'm waving to people back there so small, I can't even see them," Trump said. "By the way, what do you think the chances are that this incredible, massive crowd, record-setting, is going to be shown on television tonight? One percent or zero?"

"So I have to tell you," he said, "what we did, in all fairness, is an unbelievable tribute to you and all of the other millions and millions of people that came out and voted for 'Make America Great Again.'"

Some are not too pleased.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

Quote:

Trump’s speech at the Jamboree in Mount Hope, W.Va., broke with years of tradition — presidential traditions and Scouting traditions both. Past presidents had used these moments to extol American exceptionalism and civic virtues — such as service and honesty — that have long been pillars of the Boy Scout ethos. Trump did a little of that before veering into a speech about his own exceptionalism.

“It pivoted to essentially a typical Trump rally.

...By Tuesday, Trump’s speech had prompted a backlash from many current and former Scouts and their families, who say it was not only inappropriate but also undermines efforts to diversify and modernize the century-old organization.