board77

The Last Homely Site on the Web

You've been Trumped!

Post Reply   Page 58 of 65  [ 1284 posts ]
Jump to page « 156 57 58 59 6065 »
Author Message
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 15 Aug , 2019 3:10 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4575 ... from-visit
Quote:
The Jewish Democratic Council of America on Thursday pushed back on President Trump’s support for the Israeli government potentially banning Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) from visiting the Middle East country.

Council executive director Halie Soifer said such a move by the Israeli government would be counterproductive and “plays into President Trump’s goal of politicizing support for Israel.”
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... mps-urging
Quote:
Israel on Thursday announced that it would deny Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) entry to the country during an upcoming overseas trip, according to multiple reports.

The decision was announced moments after President Trump tweeted that it would show "great weakness" for Israel to allow the two congresswomen into the country.
Quote:
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is reportedly poised to block Tlaib and Omar from entering the country. The two congresswomen have criticized his government and voted against a nonbinding resolution last month condemning a movement to boycott the Israeli state over its treatment of Palestinians.

A new Israeli law denies entry to the country to people who back such boycotts.
I guess Israel (or at least its current government) just showed us all where it stands on dissent and free speech.


Edit: It seems the Israeli ambassador said a month ago that they wouldn't deny entry to Tlaib and Omar, so Trump seems to have meddled directly. Also worth noting that, right now, 72 of our other congressional representatives, mostly freshmen, are on the official free trip to Israel sponsored by an American pro-Israel lobbying group. The Hill article doesn't mention it, but I believe Tlaib and Omar had planned a trip where members of Congress were exposed to the occupied territories too. Definitely in Netanyahu's/ Israel's interest to shut that down and limit what our representatives get to see.

By listening to Trump, Israel also seems to have unleashed some unusual criticism:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ib/596167/
Quote:
It is not clear whether the Trump administration actually worked behind the scenes to influence the Israeli government’s decision on this issue, or whether Israel acted specifically because Trump spoke out. It is entirely possible that the Israeli embassy would have preferred to let the congresswomen’s trip pass quietly, without any official acknowledgment. But with Trump’s prompting, the country fell back into an established pattern of banning its critics from entering the country.

In the past few years, Israel has turned away a Columbia University professor, leaders in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and an American student. It has also detained Israel critics such as the Atlantic contributor Peter Beinart for extensive questioning, even though Beinart self-identifies as a Zionist. Last year, the government released a list of 20 international organizations that would be banned for their alignment with the BDS movement, including the American group Jewish Voices for Peace...
Even the former US ambassador to Israel has some criticisms despite his praise of Israel:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... wn/596212/
Quote:
There are only two possible explanations for this about-face.

One is that the Israeli government belatedly determined that the visit would be used by Tlaib and Omar to promote their agenda, that their itinerary would focus only on the Palestinian narrative. But that is no surprise. ... And in any case, over the past two weeks Israeli officials actively discouraged credible Israeli nongovernment bodies from offering briefings to the delegation that would provide a more balanced picture.

The real reason was laid bare by Trump’s tweet. Through his every word and deed, he has demonstrated that he will make deepening racial divides in the United States—around immigration, around policing, and yes, around Israel—central to his strategy for reelection in 2020.

And that puts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the horns of a dilemma. Fighting for his own political life in elections to be held on September 17, and with indictments heading his way shortly thereafter, he has made his no-daylight-with-Trump image central to his own reelection strategy, draping tall buildings with posters of the two of them gripping and grinning...

...Rumors are rife in Israel over the gifts Trump may bestow on Netanyahu in the final stages of this election: a new U.S.-Israel defense pact; permitting the convicted (and now paroled) Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard to travel to Israel; a presidential visit with stops in the Golan Heights and the Western Wall; or the ultimate jackpot—U.S. acceptance of Israeli annexation of West Bank settlements.

Netanyahu will call in whatever he thinks it will take to win, no matter the blows to the two-state solution, no matter the damage to bipartisan U.S. support for Israel. He just wants to be sure that Trump will deliver...




https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... -gibraltar
Quote:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) Thursday moved to seize an Iranian tanker currently detained in Gibraltar for breaking international sanctions on oil shipments, spoiling efforts by authorities in London and the British territory to ease tensions with Tehran, multiple media outlets reported.




https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/ ... ce-1662256
Quote:
The Trump administration wants to pour more federal funding into Immigration and Customs Enforcement by shifting money out of other Department of Homeland Security accounts, two House aides and a congressional office confirmed to POLITICO...

The Trump administration’s request comes after Homeland Security redirected $200 million last year from various accounts into ICE, pulling from the Coast Guard, TSA aviation security and more. Nearly $10 million was diverted from FEMA at the start of hurricane season, sparking congressional backlash....

https://psmag.com/social-justice/califo ... ot-go-free
Quote:
Orange County is the latest in a growing number of cities and counties across the country that have ended their detention contracts with ICE over the past year...

...the decisions have had unexpected repercussions. ... In some cases, [ICE] has responded to closures by transferring people to detention centers hundreds of miles away, where their lawyers fear they won't have access to the same resources they have in California. In other cases, ICE has taken steps to keep the facilities open by contracting directly with private prison companies—a move that shields the detention centers from local government oversight and allows ICE to get around the 2017 law that restricts their expansion...

...After the Bay Area decision, ICE told the Mercury News that 60 detainees were sent to a private detention center in Colorado, while 20 were sent to Washington State. For Sacramento, it's harder to find data (and ICE hasn't responded to requests to provide it), but advocates report that some immigrants were sent as far away as Hawaii...

https://www.theamericanconservative.com ... e-prisons/
Quote:
Who’s Making Money From the Border Crisis? Private Prisons
For-profit detention centers are raking in the cash, as the Trump administration incarcerates unprecedented numbers of people.
Quote:
The vast majority of people jailed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are held in private facilities. The two companies that manage over half of the private prison contracts in the U.S., CoreCivic and GEO Group, earned more than $4 billion in 2017. Both have spent millions of dollars on lobbyists and campaign contributions, ostensibly to ensure that Washington continues to favor the $2 billion detention system...

Immigration detention is handled in civil courts because entering the U.S. illegally is a misdemeanor. The Trump administration’s handling of this matter, including the detention of an unprecedented number of people, has come at a high cost to taxpayers. GEO Group and CoreCivic are making a windfall detaining an unknown number of asylum seekers, those awaiting hearings in immigration court, and those identified for removal. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has $475 million worth of contracts with GEO Group, and $280 million with CoreCivic, according to USAspending.gov....

The GEO Group and CoreCivic have used some of the taxpayer money they have received to hire an army of lobbyists to continue the flow of government largesse....
This article notes that these facilities cost us $148/day/person. It also says:
Quote:
...there are other, far less expensive options for immigration enforcement that have proven to be extremely effective, says Lars Trautman from the center-right R Street Institute. These include ankle-bracelet monitoring and access to legal representation.

... A lot of the growth in these detainments really boils down to heavy-handed policies that Trump has enacted,” says Trautman.

Despite the Trump administration’s claims to the contrary, asylum seekers are not flight risks. They actually appear for immigration court proceedings at very high rates...
And, surprise, surprise, more secrecy from Trump et al
Quote:
the exact number of people that ICE is holding within the for-profit prison system is impossible to accurately pinpoint. Freedom of Information Act requests do not apply to private prisons, and ICE and CBP haven’t been forthcoming with information on the extent of their partnerships with private corporations.



btw, it looks like Trump's new press secretary will be a great fit for him:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... fings-back
Quote:
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham [was] asked in an interview with Sinclair's Eric Bolling whether she would restore the [press] briefings, [and] Grisham said, “We’re going to talk about it. That’ll be ultimately up to the president.”

..."He is the most accessible president in modern history so I don’t know what any of the press could complain about,” she said.
Sinclair is the extremely pro-Trump news organization that has been buying up local TV stations.

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 16 Aug , 2019 1:18 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... state-dept
Quote:
A federal watchdog alleges that top officials in the State Department's Bureau of International Organization Affairs harassed and mistreated staffers, according to an inspector general report published Thursday. The report accused officials of engaging in "disrespectful and hostile treatment" of staffers, and alleges that officials harassed some staffers over suspicions that they were "disloyal" to President Trump.

The watchdog found that at least one top career employee was pushed out of her role for inappropriate reasons, while others had their duties stripped from them because of their superiors' political views....


https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -greenland
Quote:
President Trump has privately asked aides about the possibility of purchasing Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Two advisers told the Journal that Trump asked them and other advisers at dinners and in passing conversations whether such a move would be possible, listening intently when they talked about its resources and geopolitical importance.

He also reportedly asked his White House counsel to look into the idea.

Some of his advisers were supportive of the move...
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... t-for-sale
Quote:
“We are open for business, but we’re not for sale,” Greenland’s foreign minister Ane Lone Bagger said, according to Reuters.

Lawmakers from two of Denmark's major political parties torched the idea in statements to Reuters and a Danish broadcaster, while a former U.S. ambassador referred to news of the situation as a "disaster."...

Danish conservatives are no more recipient to the idea. A spokesman for the Danish People's Party, a right-leaning conservative party that represents the third-largest party in the country, called the plan "ridiculous."

“If he is truly contemplating this, then this is final proof, that he has gone mad,” spokesman Soren Espersen told broadcaster DR, according to Reuters....

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Sun 18 Aug , 2019 6:08 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowit ... -to-buy-us
Quote:
Satire from The Borowitz Report
Denmark Offers to Buy U.S.
Quote:
...“As we have stated, Greenland is not for sale,” a spokesperson for the Danish government said on Friday. “We have noted, however, that during the Trump regime pretty much everything in the United States, including its government, has most definitely been for sale.”

“Denmark would be interested in purchasing the United States in its entirety, with the exception of its government,” the spokesperson added...

It seems we taxpayers just paid for a Trump political rally, complete with paid audience.
https://www.businessinsider.de/trump-sh ... ?r=US&IR=T
Quote:
Workers at a new Shell plant in Pennsylvania say were told they had to attend a speech by President Donald Trump in order to get paid, according to a report from the Pittsburg Post-Gazette.

Workers were also told "no yelling, shouting, protesting or anything viewed as resistance will be tolerated at the event. An underlying theme of the event is to promote good will from the unions. Your building trades leaders and jobs stewards have agreed to this."...

The president's rally-style speech, which a senior administration official described as "not a political event but an official event," included jabs at Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden, calls for union leaders to support him in 2020, a warning that Democrats would take their jobs, and taking credit for the complex, which is still under construction and was first announced in 2012 when former president Barack Obama was still in office.

In addition to the ethical concerns of the speech, which was expected to focus on energy but instead transformed into a full-on campaign rally (despite being funded by taxpayer dollars, which are not supposed to go toward political campaigns), the Pittsburg Post-Gazette on Friday revealed another red flag: the workers in the crowd didn't attend Trump's event by choice...

Here's the official transcript of his speech.
https://www.rev.com/blog/donald-trump-p ... transcript

It's his usual rambling, semi-coherent, self-promoting gibberish. Things like this:
Quote:
And in the last really great election, our election of 2016, you know, we did great with the union workers, great. But we didn’t do good with the leadership. The leadership said, “Well, we’ve always gone Democrat. Let’s keep going that way.” That didn’t work out too well for some of them, I want to tell you. I’ll tell you, and as Gretchen said, this would have never happened without me and us. This would have never happened. So I’m with you. I’m with you. Remember that.

And remember that Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania has the best numbers they’ve ever had in the history of the state, and that’s for a very good reason. And you know what that reason is? Hello, here I am.
He did his weird thing about wind power again, too. It seems that people mocking his stupidity did not teach him anything:
Quote:
And then all of a sudden it stops, the wind, and the televisions go off. And your wives and husbands say, “Darling, I want to watch Donald Trump on television tonight, but the wind stopped blowing and I can’t watch, there’s no electricity in the house, Darling.”.
It seems he's still trying to live down that time he was the only world leader who didn't make it to the WWII memorial celebrations (sent his underlings to represent the US) when it was raining. :D
Quote:
I was a good builder, I built it, I love building. In fact, I’m going to take a tour of the site. They said, “Sir, we were going to do it before the speech, but we’re waiting for it to stop raining.” I said, “Don’t worry about the rain. Do we have umbrellas? Don’t worry about the rain.” Umbrellas work very well, especially when they are made in America.
(unlike his MAGA hats, which are made in China? :) )


He blatantly tells the workers to vote out their union leaders if they don't support Trump:
Quote:
I’m going to speak to some of your union leaders to say, I hope you’re going to support Trump. Okay? And if they don’t vote them the hell out of office because they’re not doing their job, it’s true. Vote them out of office.
And, seriously, this is the US president's understanding of the economy?! No wonder he doesn't get it when people tell him that trade wars are not good for anyone involved. What he says about the Great Recession and the interest rates reminds me of when you try to explain something to an elderly person who has lost some of his/her cognitive abilities, and they have picked up some of the words but clearly don't understand how it all fits together and make up their own story instead:
Quote:
We have a record that nobody’s ever had. Remember when I was running, I was saying, “We’re going to do this. We’re going to create jobs.” Everyone, big yawn. You know, we like him. Let’s give him a shot. What do we have to lose, right? I said that with African Americans, they had the worst crime rates, the worst education, the worst everything. They had like 10 things. I’m reading it off a list. I looked, I said, “What the hell do you have to lose?” But I really sort of said the same thing to everybody, because our country wasn’t doing well with Biden and Obama, wasn’t doing well, and they were pouring money in, pouring, pouring money in, and it wasn’t doing well. Even now, you see the interest rates, I’m paying a normalized interest rate. We should be paying less, frankly.

This guy’s made a big mistake. He’s made a big mistake. The head of the Fed. That was another beauty that I chose, but even with that, we’re paying a normalized interest rate. The nice thing is you get some interest from the bank. With President Obama, he was paying nothing. It’s easy to make money when you’re paying nothing. You’re paying zero. Easy. But even with that, our economy’s roaring, and his wasn’t. It was the weakest economy since the Great Depression, the weakest up. So we have it going. Our country now has the hottest economy anywhere in the world.

He even got them to respond a little like his campaign rallies:
Quote:
Donald Trump: 00:54:26 I don’t want to do it too early. I did it very early with Pocahontas. I should have probably waited. She’s staging a comeback on Sleepy Joe. I don’t know who’s going to win, but we’ll have to hit Pocahontas very hard again if she does win. But she’s staging a little bit of a comeback. What a group, Pocahontas and Sleepy Joe. I don’t think they give a damn about Western Pennsylvania, do you?

Audience: 00:54:53 No.
In general, you can pretty much sum up his speech as: Trump good and great leader; Democrats and Obama bad. America wonderful; allies bad; Iran bad. Fracking is wonderful and any state that doesn't allow it is stupid. Andrew Wheeler and Rick Perry are great, please applaud them and what they've done. And the EPA is doing a wonderful job now that we're dismantling it - and we're also giving you the cleanest air and water you ever had. And now that I'm in power, we're going to bulldoze over environmental regulations and anyone who has concerns about the oil and gas industry, sideline and diminish alternative sources of energy, and generally do whatever we like, ignoring all other viewpoints.



One thing's for sure - Trump is the epitome of the Ugly American - that comes through even in his gibberish:
Quote:
Because Americans can do anything, go anywhere, and outperform anyone. Nobody can beat us. Nothing can stop us, because winning is what Americans do. Winning is what we know best. We will keep winning, wining, winning.

I used to tell you the story about winning. I used to say that your great leaders would come to Washington and they would say, “President, we’re winning too much. We can’t take it anymore. The people of Pennsylvania cannot stand winning. We haven’t won for years and years, and now we’re winning too much. Mr. President, please, for the good of the people of Pennsylvania, stop winning. Stop creating all these jobs. Stop creating all this product. Please, sir. Please, stop winning.”.

I said to them, and I will say to them, “We’re never going to stop winning because nobody has ever won like what’s happened over the last couple of years. Nobody has ever won like you’re winning.” I’ve more than fulfilled my promises. Even they said, “He promised things, and he actually produced more than he promised.” That’s true. But we’re going to produce more and more...
This is just embarrassing, to be represented to the world by this arrogant moron.

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 20 Aug , 2019 9:24 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/4581 ... eet-trades
Quote:
Two federal bank regulators voted Tuesday to approve a significant rollback of a controversial ban on risky trades passed in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

...While the OCC and FDIC are but two of five agencies that must sign off on the new Volcker Rule, their approval of the proposal is the first step in a massive lobbying victory for some of the largest U.S. banks.

The Volcker Rule was one of several provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law designed to ban risky and overly complex investments that helped crash the global financial system in 2008.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... e-or-great
Quote:
"I think Jewish people that vote for a Democrat — I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty," Trump told reporters during an Oval Office meeting with the president of Romania.

As I predicted earlier...
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... und-checks
Quote:
President Trump said Tuesday that the United States already has “very strong background checks” for gun purchasers and that officials need to be wary of the prospect of a “slippery slope” where “everything gets taken away.”

Trump’s comments to reporters in the Oval Office provided more evidence that he is backtracking after initially expressing support for enhanced background checks following a pair of mass shootings that killed 31 people earlier this month.

His comments foretelling a “slippery slope” also closely mirrored the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) long-held argument that even modest gun control regulations would inevitably lead to more stringent ones...




What brain-dead administrator came up with this one? - incarcerate people in crowded, stressful, unhygienic conditions that would promote disease spread, then don't vaccinate any of them:
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4 ... lu-vaccine
Quote:
U.S. immigration authorities do not currently vaccinate migrants in custody against the flu virus, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) does not have any plans to do so ahead of the upcoming flu season.

“In general, due to the short term nature of CBP holding and the complexities of operating vaccination programs, neither CBP nor its medical contractors administer vaccinations to those in our custody,” an agency spokeswoman told The Hill in an e-mailed statement...
Even without considering the other aspects, it's a short-sighted move that means more money will probably have to be spent on medical care for those who do get sick.

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 21 Aug , 2019 1:55 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
The Atlantic has background information about Trump deciding not to support improvements in background checks. Reveals a fair bit about how the US government now works.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ra/596413/
Quote:
Three days after a pair of mass shootings in Ohio and Texas that left 31 people dead, President Donald Trump was preoccupied with visions of a Rose Garden ceremony.

His daughter and senior adviser, Ivanka Trump, had proposed the idea of a televised Rose Garden appearance as a way to nudge her father toward supporting universal background checks.... the prospect, ...[she] thought, where Trump could sign a document and call it “historic” and “unprecedented”—and receive positive media attention—might be the best chance of yielding real change.

For a moment, it looked like it just might work. “He loved it. He was all spun up about it,” said a former senior White House official...

On August 7, the president picked up the phone to discuss the idea with Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the National Rifle Association. “It’s going to be great, Wayne,” Trump said...“They will love us.” And if they—meaning the roughly 5 million people who make up the NRA’s active membership, and some of Trump’s electoral base—didn’t, Trump reportedly assured LaPierre, “I’ll give you cover.” ...

The president reportedly asked LaPierre whether the NRA was willing to give in at all on background checks. LaPierre’s response, the sources said, was unequivocal: “No.” With that, “the Rose Garden fantasy,” as the NRA official described it to me, was scrapped as quickly as it had been dreamed up....
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... tal-health
Quote:
Communications employees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were warned not to post anything on social media regarding mental health or violence after two mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.

The Aug. 5 memo, which was obtained by The Washington Post, alarmed some of the agency’s staffers, who believed the warning was intended to prevent anyone from challenging President Trump’s claim that mental illness played a role in the two attacks...
According to staffers, such gag orders are unusual and alarming. What I wonder is, if no one gets to contradict Dear Leader, does that mean everyone has to support insane things like his wind-stops-blowing-power-goes-off fantasies about using alternative energy sources? Definitely the emperor's new clothes territory here.



Speaking of weirdness:
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... tion-total
Quote:
Trump was scheduled to visit Denmark on Sept. 2 following a trip to Poland. He was expected to meet with the Queen of Denmark, other leaders and business officials, as well as Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who called the idea of purchasing the world’s largest island “absurd.”

“Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time,” Trump tweeted late Tuesday.
As a result, Danish politicians clearly think he's nuts now (if they didn't before).

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 23 Aug , 2019 1:56 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... n-us-goods
Quote:
China announced Friday it will impose tariffs on $75 billion worth of U.S. goods, the latest salvo in the year-plus trade war between the world's two largest economies.

The country's State Council said tariffs of 5 percent to 10 percent will be imposed on a variety of American goods in two batches, with the first going into effect next month and a second scheduled for December, multiple media outlets reported, citing state-run media.

The second batch of tariffs will reportedly include a 25 percent tariff on all U.S. automobiles...
And naturally our Idiot In Chief responds as you might predict. And so do stocks.:
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/4585 ... se-tariffs
Quote:
U.S. stocks dropped sharply Friday after President Trump said he would respond to new tariffs from Beijing issued earlier that day and ordered American firms to look beyond China.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 420 points, a 1.6 percent drop, after Trump tweeted that he “will be responding” to new Chinese tariffs on $75 billion in U.S. goods announced Friday. The Nasdaq composite fell 2 percent after Trump’s tweets, while the S&P 500 fell 1.7 percent.
Just once, I wish Dear Leader would consult someone with brains before he tweets.

Oh, and he's ordered US companies to do something. He's been spending way too much time talking to his dictator buddies. Someone needs to let this clown know he's not in Russia or North Korea .
Quote:
“Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China
He also claims the Fed is an enemy of the US because they don't follow Trump around like a lapdog and do whatever he tells them. Unlike his remaining Cabinet heads and political appointees, plus most of the Republicans in Congress these days.
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/4585 ... hairman-xi
Quote:
"As usual, the Fed did NOTHING! It is incredible that they can 'speak' without knowing or asking what I am doing, which will be announced shortly. We have a very strong dollar and a very weak Fed. I will work 'brilliantly' with both, and the U.S. will do great," Trump tweeted Friday, following Powell's speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

....My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019

Trump's tweet followed Powell's warning Friday that while the Fed may cut interest rates to support the U.S. economy, it cannot solve the harm created by Trump's trade battles.





https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/ ... 08119.html
Quote:
Russia and the United States have blamed each other for abandoning a landmark arms control agreement on missiles, with Moscow warning of a new arms race and the Trump administration demanding details of a recent mysterious explosion that killed five Russian nuclear engineers.

Thursday's confrontation took place after Russia called a meeting of the United Nations Security Council following the US test of a missile banned by the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which both countries withdrew from on August 2....

The meeting put on display the deep distrust between the two nuclear powers, and the anxiety of other countries about an escalating arms race including with China....
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4585 ... ssile-test
Quote:
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that he has ordered government agencies to take “exhaustive measures to prepare a reciprocal response” to a missile test recently conducted by the United States.


This is not entirely Trump's fault - it's been a problem for a long time. But Trump has made it much worse. And US cities are losing out on money from international conferences because foreign scientists just don't want to deal with the crap from our paranoia.
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201908190932-0025901
Quote:
Are US visa rules stifling research and innovation?
Scientists and scholars from around the world face difficulties entering country for fact-finding programmes and education.


And the GOP has officially gone nuts. Some of them are busily praising the emperor's wonderful new clothes online, acting as if making an offer to buy Greenland is a smart move and it's reasonable to pull out of an international meeting in pique when the Danes called the idea absurd - which it is. (btw, I hope they're getting paid well.)

I thought it was just the loony Trump cultists. Then I saw this:
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing ... as-part-of
Quote:
The House Republican campaign arm is pitching T-shirts promoting President Trump’s effort to buy Greenland that feature a map of the United States showing the territory as part of America, the entirety of which is colored in with red, white and blue.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) offered the shirts as part of a promotion for donors who contributed at least $25...
At least a GOP group in Nevada is selling Greenland and Area 51 shirts as a joke. But the NRCC seems to be serious. And some GOP group is obviously putting out talking points for the Trump cultists, like saying that we bought Alaska from Russia, after all, so it's obviously quite reasonable to start putting in bids for other countries again.


This was funny, though:
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... change-for
Quote:
“Dear President @realDonaldTrump, one euro and Wallonia is yours. Call us. #GreenlandIsNotForSale,” Jong N-VA, the youth wing of the New Flemish Alliance, tweeted Thursday.

An old (2016, pre-election) but amusingly written article. Just don't think too hard about what this guy is doing to trade now.
https://gawker.com/a-complete-list-of-d ... 1764151188
Quote:
A Complete List of Donald Trump’s Business Disasters
Quote:
...So to commemorate our country’s imminent President Trump-wrought downfall, we’ve compiled every major, non-real estate-related Trump business disaster out there (we think). Because while we aim for completeness, the man has failed—a lot. If you know of anything we missed, please do let us know down below. And Donald, good luck with that wall...
For instance:
Quote:
Trump Airlines
Image: AP

Launched: 1989

Service rendered: Hourly flights between Boston, New York City, and Washington D.C.

Years in business: 4-ish

What went wrong: This was another case of Donald Trump attempting to turn a service that already exists into something a little more Trump-y. But this time, rather than build something entirely new, Trump purchased Eastern Air Lines Shuttle, which had been offering hourly flights on the East Coast since 1961 with moderate success. That all changed with Trump’s magic touch.

The airline had succeeded largely because of its no-frills service—you didn’t need a reservation ahead of time, there were no seat assignments, no check-ins, and no boarding passes. You’d show up and hop on a plane for relatively cheap. When Trump bought 17 of the company’s Boeing 727s for $365 million in 1988, “he added maple-wood veneer to the floors, chrome seat-belt latches and gold-colored bathroom fixtures.”

Apparently, customers who appreciated the service’s ease weren’t into the over-the-top makeover. Alienated customers combined with the high fuel prices of the late 80s translated to Trump Airlines never turning a profit. As Time explains, “The high debt forced Trump to default on his loans, and ownership of the company was turned over to creditors. The Trump Shuttle ceased to exist in 1992 when it was merged into a new corporation, Shuttle Inc. No word on whether the gold-plated faucets survived the merger.”


I'm no fan of Scaramucci, but I'm enjoying him roasting Trump. He has some pretty good lines:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -a-hostage
Quote:
“He may not have early-stage dementia but he has full blown early-stage fascism.”
IMO he has both.

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
Jude
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Sun 25 Aug , 2019 10:46 pm
Aspiring to heresy
User avatar
Offline
 
Posts: 19650
Joined: Wed 23 Feb , 2005 6:54 pm
Location: Canada
 
There are two possible positive sides to the tweet-induced stock market drop:

1. Perfectly good companies are "on sale". This is a great time for everyone to gather up whatever spare money they can get their hands on and put it into their retirement account. This is what I plan to do tomorrow.

2. Maybe this will finally convince the republican establishment to withdraw their support for Trump. They put up with the racism, the sexism, the embarrassing gaffes, but once their bottom line is affected - well, that's a step too far.

_________________

[ img ]

Melkor and Ungoliant in need of some relationship counselling.


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Mon 26 Aug , 2019 2:47 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
1. Not me. I'm battening down the hatches on my retirement account and shifting some more money to guaranteed funds as soon as the stock market goes up and stabilizes a bit. There are too many red flags out there, like the yield curve inversion and the mess for farmers, and Trump seems guaranteed to turn a normal recession into a big mess.

Even his administration seems to think so. They've had everyone out there on talk shows trying to convince people there's no need to fear.


Not to mention that he seems increasingly erratic. And instead of restraining his lunacy, people in his administration support it and praise him. Seriously, what normal person, when hearing that the president of the United States wanted to drop a nuclear bomb in a hurricane, would say "Hey, good idea, thinking outside the box!"?:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... is-not-bad
Quote:
A senior Trump administration official told Axios that the president's suggestion to drop nuclear bombs into hurricanes to stop them from hitting the United States was well-intentioned.

"His goal — to keep a catastrophic hurricane from hitting the mainland — is not bad," the official, who had been briefed on the suggestion, told the outlet. "His objective is not bad."

"What people near the president do is they say 'I love a president who asks questions like that, who’s willing to ask tough questions,'" the official said. "It takes strong people to respond to him in the right way when stuff like this comes up. For me, alarm bells weren't going off when I heard about it, but I did think somebody is going to use this to feed into 'the president is crazy' narrative."
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -us-report
Quote:
I got it. I got it. Why don't we nuke them?" Trump said at one such White House briefing, a source who was there told Axios... The source told Axios that the briefer responded with something to the effect of "Sir, we'll look into that."

A 2017 NSC memo relayed to Axios reportedly describes a second conversation in which Trump asked whether the administration should bomb hurricanes to stop them from hitting the homeland...

A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fact sheet about tropic cyclones address the concept... "Apart from the fact that this might not even alter the storm, this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems," the sheet reads.
And these fact sheets are written for members of the public who may wonder about such things, not supposedly intelligent members of the government.

I don't know a damn thing about nuclear weapons - but I immediately realized that a) that it would be incredibly dumb, as it would create a tremendous amount of nuclear fallout, plus destroy everything in the ocean nearby (also, a few seconds' worth of thinking also makes you realize that you'd be doing this not once, but multiple times each year) , and b) if strategically placed non-nuclear bombs might be a feasible approach, then scientists would have already looked into the possibility - it's not like it requires Nobel-level thinking to come up with the idea. But Trump seems to think that no one could possibly be as clever as he is, on every possible subject. And he never seems to learn, no matter how often people try to explain things to him (see, for instance, Rex Tillerson and others trying to explain to Trump that, no, we don't actually want to use nuclear weapons just because we have them - which is what apparently exasperated Tillerson enough to call Trump a moron afterward.) He just grabs hold of an idea and hangs on for dear life, no matter how stupid it is. And instead of saying "no, sorry, that won't work and this is why," his current staffers say "yes, sir, we'll look into that." This a seriously dysfunctional government Trump has created.

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Mon 26 Aug , 2019 9:00 pm
You are hearing me talk
Offline
 
Posts: 2950
Joined: Mon 28 Feb , 2005 8:14 am
Location: Great Lakes
 
Sheesh, some people are never happy. When the man does nothing, he gets accused of negligence in the face of climate change. When he offers a plan to combat global warming with nuclear winter, he gets smeared for that too.


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 27 Aug , 2019 1:34 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
:D I know, I know. And he's losing so much money by being president too. Can you blame him for trying to have the next G7 meeting at one of his resorts so he can recoup some of his losses?

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 28 Aug , 2019 3:57 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
Poor Fox news. Unhinged Dear Leader is telling his followers to find a new news outlet.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... us-anymore
Quote:
"Just watched @FoxNews heavily promoting the Democrats through their DNC Communications Director, spewing out whatever she wanted with zero pushback by anchor, @SandraSmithFox. Terrible considering that Fox couldn’t even land a debate, the Dems give them NOTHING!" Trump tweeted.

Trump blasted the network as "HOPELESS & CLUELESS" for hiring Brazile, Williams and Smith, each of whom have criticized the president at various times.

"They should go all the way LEFT and I will still find a way to Win — That’s what I do, Win. Too Bad!" Trump continued. "I don’t want to Win for myself, I only want to Win for the people. The New
@FoxNews is letting millions of GREAT people down! We have to start looking for a new News Outlet. Fox isn’t working for us anymore!"
It seems that The Guardian was right.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... nald-trump
Quote:
Trump has a new favourite news network – and it's more rightwing than Fox

The US president has started giving plaudits - and access - to One America News Network, an obscure TV outlet that can outfox Fox
Quote:
The obscure One America News Network (OAN) makes up for its lack of clout or viewers by covering every Trump utterance, recycling conspiracy theories, downplaying Russian threats, bashing the mainstream media and championing the “Make America Great Again” agenda.

...An article on the Daily Beast website last month was headlined “The Hell of Working at Trump’s New Favorite Network”, based on interviews with four former OAN employees. One ex-video producer, Ernest Champell, said he was told on his first day at work, “Yeah, we like Russia here,” and recalled how the network spread conspiracy theories and ran “hit jobs” on politicians. He quit after four months...

The president has also mentioned OAN 25 times on Twitter since October 2015, including seven tweets in March, April and May. The most recent: “Also, congratulations to @OANN on the great job you are doing and the big ratings jump (“thank you President Trump”)!”

OAN secured a seat in the White House briefing room and its journalists are regularly called upon to ask questions at press conferences. ...

Last month Emerald Robinson, OAN’s chief White House correspondent, bagged an interview with the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and this week she was the first journalist called upon by Trump at his joint press conference with Polish president Andrzej Duda (Trump: “We’ll take a few questions. Emerald? OAN.” Robinson: “Thank you, Mr President.” Trump: “Thank you.”)...
Sounds like it suits our current president quite nicely:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/one-amer ... s-network/
Quote:
One America News writes articles that are very short and easy to read. Their aim is to keep stories under 1 minute long. Story selection almost always favors the right and in particular President Donald Trump. An article in AdWeek describes how the owner of Herring Networks directs his newsroom to favor Trump: “According to internal emails, Herring has directed his channel to push Trump’s candidacy, scuttle stories about police shootings, encourage antiabortion stories, minimize coverage of Russian aggression, and steer away from the new president’s troubles, according to more than a dozen current and former producers, writers and anchors, as well as internal emails from Herring and his top news executives.”

OAN has also promoted right wing conspiracies such as the Seth Rich Murder and that there was no evidence of chemical attacks in Syria....

Overall, we rate One America News Far right biased based on story selection that consistently favors the Right and Mixed for factual reporting due to promotion of conspiracies, lack of sourcing and a few failed fact checks.
Interesting (at least to me) related story:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ty/596380/
Quote:
They Just Wanted to Entertain
AM stations mainly wanted to keep listeners engaged—but ended up remaking the Republican Party
Quote:
No one set out to turn the airwaves into a political weapon—much less deputize talk-radio hosts as the ideological enforcers of a major American political party. Instead the story of how the GOP establishment lost its power over the Republican message—and eventually the party itself—begins with frantic AM radio executives and a former Top 40 disc jockey, Rush Limbaugh....

In its early phases, conservative talk radio had exhibited a pragmatic streak that would sound foreign today.... Hosts never loved moderates, and never hesitated to criticize them for actions out of step with hosts’ vision for the country. But they understood that such figures were crucial to securing a majority, without which their preferred agenda had no shot. But this detente started to break down as the 2000s progressed...

As the number of ideological moderates declined, the definition of RINOism expanded. Any Republican who sought out compromise or who rejected political warfare found him or herself a target of conservative media....

...hosts had amassed enough power that elected Republicans had to pay attention to their demands...

In the 2010s, talk radio’s business needs further upended the traditional political hierarchy. With moderates virtually extinct, the war against RINOs often focused on Republican leaders like Boehner whose sin was simply not being willing to adopt the strident tactics that hosts demanded. Hosts blasted them with increasing regularity, while praising a new group of political superstars, largely backbenchers with minimal power on Capitol Hill. But they were perfect for talk radio: They spewed extreme rhetoric, saw the world in black-and-white terms, and advocated for the most extreme tactics possible. ..

Trump’s presidency is the ultimate testament to the power of talk-radio conservatism. ..




https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... s-national
Quote:
The Trump administration is moving to lift logging restrictions on Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the country’s largest national forest, The Washington Post reports.

The president reportedly directed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to lift the restrictions put in place under the Clinton administration’s 2001 “Roadless Rule” earlier this month, three sources familiar with the matter told the Post.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the rule establishes prohibitions on “road construction, road reconstruction, and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas on National Forest System lands.”

The move to roll back the rule could reportedly downgrade protections for the majority of the rainforest, which spans 16.7 million acres, and potentially allow for possible logging and mining projects...
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... rest-fires
Quote:
President Trump on Tuesday voiced support for Brazilian far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, whose administration faces international scrutiny over the surge in wildfires in the Amazon rainforest.

“I have gotten to know President @jairbolsonaro well in our dealings with Brazil,” Trump tweeted of the populist leader who has been dubbed the "Trump of the Tropics." “He is working very hard on the Amazon fires and in all respects doing a great job for the people of Brazil - Not easy. He and his country have the full and complete support of the USA!”...

The supportive remarks from Trump came the same day Brazil rejected a $20 million aid package from Group of Seven (G-7) nations to battle wildfires that have ravaged the Amazon rainforest, a region that serves as a vital carbon store for the rest of the world. ...
This is a pretty good, factual and non-sensationalist article about the Amazon fires, their extent, and Bolsonaro's role from The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -we-can-do
Quote:
Jair Bolsonaro has made things a lot worse by weakening the environment agency, attacking conservation NGOs and promoting the opening of the Amazon to mining, farming and logging. The far-right leader has dismissed satellite data on deforestation and fired the head of the space agency. But it is not solely his fault. The agricultural lobby is powerful in Brazil and it has steadily eroded the protection system that was so successful from 2005-2014. Deforestation crept up in the past five years under the previous presidents Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer. The rate has accelerated rapidly in the first eight months of Bolsonaro’s rule. But this is not just about him, politics or Brazil. There are also huge fires in Bolivia, which has a leftwing populist president.




This is interesting. I'd completely ignore it as just speculation, except that Trump has gotten his lawyers to make threats.
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4591 ... to-russian
Quote:
An attorney for President Trump on Wednesday demanded a retraction and apology following an MSNBC report ...Charles Harder sent a letter to NBC Universal saying the remarks made Tuesday night on MSNBC's "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" were false and defamatory, according to a copy of the letter made public by Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi.

...“I may have some information, in this next hour, which would add a great deal to their understanding of that, if true, and I’ll be discussing it here,” O’Donnell said. "I stress ‘if true,’ because this is a single source who has told me that Deutsche Bank obtained tax returns."

"This single source close to Deutsche Bank has told me that Donald Trump’s loan documents there show that he has co-signers. That’s how he was able to obtain those loans and that the co-signers are Russian oligarchs," he added.

“What? Really?” Maddow said.

"That would explain every kind word Donald Trump has ever said about Russia and Vladimir Putin," O'Donnell added. “I stress the ‘if true.'"...

O'Donnell, a staunch critic of the president, said later in the program that the story will "need a lot more verification before that can be a confirmable fact."
I can't see how Trump even has a leg to stand on here. But that's always been the way he works - attack with lawsuits if there's something that might damage him. Interesting that he thinks this would, since it's essentially just gossip at this point. Normally, it seems like he just blusters and tweets about unfavorable news items.



https://www.businessinsider.com/wapo-tr ... all-2019-8
Quote:
President Donald Trump has offered to pardon officials who break the law to complete hundreds of miles of barrier along the US-Mexico border, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

According to the Post, Trump ordered officials to fast-track contracts worth billions of dollars, violate environmental rules and seize private land to get the wall done by 2020. ..

Later Tuesday, Trump denied the report, which was based on interviews with multiple current and former officials. "Another totally Fake story in the Amazon Washington Post (lobbyist) which states that if my Aides broke the law to build the Wall (which is going up rapidly), I would give them a Pardon," Trump wrote on Twitter. "This was made up by the Washington Post only in order to demean and disparage - FAKE NEWS!" ...
One person in his administration claimed Dear Leader was just joking about the pardons. If that's the case, why didn't Trump say so when he denied the reports? (That also seems to be the fallback defense these days - he was just joking.)

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 29 Aug , 2019 1:35 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... ack-report
Quote:
The Trump administration is set to announce plans to roll back regulations on methane emissions on Thursday, The New York Times reported.

An industry official with knowledge of the plan told the newspaper that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to eliminate federal requirements for technology to monitor and repair methane leaks at wells, pipelines and storage facilities.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... icts-after
Quote:
Interior official threatens to withhold jobs in lawmakers' districts after opposition to BLM move
Quote:
The Department of the Interior announced in July that it would leave just 61 BLM employees in Washington while scattering about 300 other D.C.-based employees to offices all across the West....

"The actions of the department and the lack of justification for this proposal seem to underscore the message that Interior officials fully intended to dismantle and weaken the BLM from the outset," Udall said in a statement to The Hill. He went on to outline what he sees as a number of issues with Interior, from slashing BLM's budget to failing to install a permanent director. The current director, William Pendley, once advocated selling off federal public lands...

Others have also asked the agency to hold off on its relocation plans.

The Public Lands Foundation, a 600-member group composed of former BLM employees, asked leaders of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to hold a hearing on a relocation they say will “functionally dismantle” the agency...
Things like this (or essentially destroying some agencies in the USDA by moving them somewhere most of their employees wouldn't go) will be difficult to undo.



https://www.cbsnews.com/news/james-matt ... 019-08-28/
Quote:
Former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis is breaking his silence for the first time since leaving office last December. He has a lot to say about his former boss, without calling him out by name...

"I did as well as I could for as long as I could," Mattis writes in excerpts from his new book "Call Sign Chaos," published in The Wall Street Journal. "When my concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign."...

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/ ... ia-1689531
Quote:
The Trump administration is slow-walking $250 million in military assistance to Ukraine, annoying lawmakers and advocates who argue the funding is critical to keeping Russia at bay....

For the 2019 fiscal year, lawmakers allocated $250 million in security aid to Ukraine, including money for weapons, training, equipment and intelligence support. Specifically, Congress set aside $50 million for weaponry.

Now, that funding is being called into question...
Never mind what Congress has appropriated, the Trump administration clearly feels they can ignore them and do whatever they like.

Including diverting appropriations to Trump's pet projects, like the money they took from FEMA, at the beginning of hurricane season, and used for border security instead. They're doing more of that sort of thing at the moment - I think I have a link to the story in a previous post.




Sorry about the source for this one. So far, the story has been a Fox news exclusive:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dhs-ba ... e-behavior
Quote:
DHS bars Dem staffers from visiting border facilities after 'rude' and 'disruptive' behavior
The gist of it is that DHS was not happy with Cummings' oversight staff when they visited a DHS border facility, and has banned them from some visits to DHS facilities in future. I read it with a grain of salt - I assume Fox has given it their usual pro-Trump spin by leaving out some facts and emphasizing others. They certainly spend a lot of time quoting vague statements from that fanatical right winger Jim Jordan, including implications that asking certain types of questions during the visit, or trying to talk to children and take pictures of the conditions, is unacceptable. Though, surprisingly, Fox had the honesty to put "rude" and "disruptive" in scare quotes (assuming they're not just ignorant about quotation marks, as is common these days.)


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/25/us/p ... media.html
Quote:
A loose network of conservative operatives allied with the White House is pursuing what they say will be an aggressive operation to discredit news organizations deemed hostile to President Trump by publicizing damaging information about journalists.

It is the latest step in a long-running effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to undercut the influence of legitimate news reporting. Four people familiar with the operation described how it works, asserting that it has compiled dossiers of potentially embarrassing social media posts and other public statements by hundreds of people who work at some of the country’s most prominent news organizations...
Unfortunately, the Twitter mobs (including many on the left) and the dependence of news media on advertisers (with the resulting lack of backbone) will probably play right into their hands.

Personally, I can't stand the thought police. Or the growing control of employers over people's personal lives. I don't think anyone should be fired over what they say on their own time, as long as it hasn't noticeably affected their performance and/or attitude at work. Or what they do, as long as it's legal. This includes things I find distasteful enough to make me avoid that person socially. I'm an adult; I can work with someone whose views I don't like.

But that's not how the US works any more. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing ... ith-antifa
Quote:
An Iowa community college professor has resigned from his position after facing scrutiny over some of his comments and his affiliation with the anti-fascist group, antifa.

And Trump and his cronies know it.

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 30 Aug , 2019 9:00 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
Despite what CBS says above, I wouldn't expect much of Mattis or his book, regarding Trump. It's obvious in this interview that Mattis despises Trump but his loyalty to the office of the presidency is more important to him than speaking up. :
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... mp/596665/
Quote:
I’ve known Mattis for many years, and we spent several hours in conversation this summer,... we discussed the qualities of effective leadership, the workings of command-and-feedback loops, the fragility of what he calls the American experiment, fishing the Columbia River, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and many other topics. But about Trump he was mainly silent. I caught glimpses of anger and incredulity, to be sure. But Mattis is a disciplined man. While discipline is an admirable quality, in my conversations with Mattis I found it exasperating, because I believe that the American people should hear his answer to this question: Is Donald Trump fit for command?
Quote:
The subject of North Korea represented my best chance to wrench a direct answer from Mattis. I had collected some of Trump’s more repellent tweets, and read aloud the one that I thought might overwhelm his defenses. It is a tweet almost without peer in the canon:

North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2019

Mattis looked at his hands. Finally he said, “Any Marine general or any other senior servant of the people of the United States would find that, to use a mild euphemism, counterproductive and beneath the dignity of the presidency.”

I'm not too surprised a military man from an older generation (Mattis is 69) would value loyalty and circumspection to this degree, though I think people like him enable Trump with his reticence (“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill).

The interviewer, who is also Mattis's friend, makes it clear that he hopes Mattis will speak out at some point. If so, I have no idea what he's waiting for, given all the norms Trump has trampled, the allies he's alienated, the mess he has made. And it's clear from this quote that Mattis knows Trump is dangerously out of his depth and doesn't have the sense to know it:
Quote:
Mattis is in an unparalleled position to provide a definitive answer. During moments of high tension with North Korea, he had worried that being out of reach of the president for more than a few seconds constituted a great risk.
It seems that people of conscience should have spoken out by now, especially when they're rich and powerful and have little to fear from Trump's habit of sending his lawyers after people to intimidate them. But we're getting nothing but silence from Mattis, Kelly, Tillerson et. al.




btw, Trump kicked out his personal assistant yesterday. She apparently told someone something Dear Leader didn't like.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... nt-resigns
Quote:
According to the [NewYork] Times, Westerhout's resignation came after Trump reportedly learned that she had shared information on a recent working vacation about his family and Oval Office matters she was part of during an off-the-record dinner with reporters at hotels near the president's Bedminster, N.J., resort.

The Times reported that Westerhout was immediately labeled a "separated employee" and would not be allowed to return to the White House on Friday
I love the "working vacation" part. Trump's working days are apparently a joke, with most of his day spent on what's euphemistically being called personal time. And they want us to think that his constant trips to his golf resorts (at our expense) are working vacations?



And in another brilliant move from the Trump administration,
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... ks-outrage
Quote:
The Trump administration has quietly altered its handling of visas granted to immigrants who cooperate with criminal investigations, allowing people to be deported even while they are waiting for their visas.

The change to U visas will make immigrants far less likely to report serious crimes...

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 04 Sep , 2019 10:17 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
Just when you thought it couldn't get any weirder.

A few days ago, Trump mistakenly included Alabama among the states in Hurricane Dorian's path in one of his tweets. Some people in Alabama believed him, got worried and started to hit the stores for supplies, so the National Weather Service had to issue a special statement saying that, no, Alabama wasn't among the states that would be affected.

Well, Trump couldn't just say "oops, I made a mistake."
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... statements
Quote:
President Trump on Monday night blasted ABC News for the network's reporting on his claims that Hurricane Dorian was expected to impact Alabama.

“Such a phony hurricane report by lightweight reporter @jonkarl of @ABCWorldNews,” Trump tweeted, targeting the network’s chief White House correspondent. “I suggested yesterday at [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] that, along with Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, even Alabama could possibly come into play, which WAS true.”

“They made a big deal about this when in fact, under certain original scenarios, it was in fact correct that Alabama could have received some ‘hurt.’ Always good to be prepared! But the Fake News is only interested in demeaning and belittling. Didn’t play my whole sentence or statement. Bad people!” he added.

...Trump raised eyebrows on Sunday when he tweeted that Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia and Alabama would “most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.” He also told reporters at the White House that “Alabama is going to get a piece” of the storm, despite no other officials or agencies suggesting Alabama residents would be affected.

And today he showed off a map with an amateurish new path for Dorian, drawn in by Sharpie, that does include Alabama. This is complete bullshit. Those of us who have been following this storm at NOAA's hurricane center website know perfectly well that the graphics of possible paths have not included any possibility of hitting Alabama since before Trump's tweet.
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-wor ... ian-chart/
Quote:
In a White House video released Wednesday, Trump displays a modified National Hurricane Center “Cone of Uncertainty” forecast, dated 11 a.m. on Thursday, indicating Alabama would be in the path. The graphic appears to have been altered with a marker to indicate a risk that the storm would move into Alabama from Florida.

We had actually, our original chart was that it was going to be hit, hitting Florida directly,” Trump said as he displayed the graphic from Thursday, which now includes an added appendage extending the cone into Alabama. “That was the original chart,” Trump said. “It could’ve, uh, was going towards the Gulf,” Trump explained in the video...

When asked about the altered hurricane forecast chart during a White House event on opioids Wednesday afternoon, Trump said his briefings included a “95 percent chance probability” that Alabama would be hit.
And the article makes it clear that Trump did receive real briefings from NOAA, which did not include Alabama. Here are the archived maps from NOAA, for those who haven't bee following the hurricane's path. h[url]ttps://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2019/DORIAN_gr ... _with_line[/url]
These paths are based on several models, which take into account various weather systems that would steer the storm. It's not like a hurricane just suddenly decides to take a sharp left turn for no good reason.

What really boggles the mind is that the Trump cult is out there defending him and coming up with excuses for this blatant bit of fakery. Fakery that no normal person would even have attempted because they'd know that they'd get caught in an instant.





https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... ge-in-path
Quote:
Trump defends shift of FEMA funds, citing Dorian's change in path
His reasoning is that it's now OK to take the funds since Dorian didn't hit Miami. The idiot doesn't even realize hurricane season is far from over. The craziest part of it is that he should know about all this, since Mar-a-Lago is in Florida...




https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... al-weekend
Quote:
President Trump tweeted more than 100 times over the three-day weekend as Hurricane Dorian approached and then battered the Bahamas.

Many of the presidential tweets were focused on the dangerous storm, though the president, who split his time at the White House, his Virginia golf club and Camp David, also focused his ire on the media and some celebrity critics...

The president lavished praise on Fox News host Sean Hannity and lashed out at New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. He derided The Washington Post after the paper published a report that recounted the controversies that dotted his summer.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... es-florida
Quote:
The Twitter assault that began over Labor Day weekend and consisted of more than 100 tweets targeting the media and his critics spilled into Tuesday, when Trump fired off about a dozen messages before noon.

This time, the mayor of London, the trade war with China, the Federal Reserve and a days-old inspector general's report about former FBI Director James Comey were front of mind for Trump...

Trump's public schedule was barren for most of the day. He received his intelligence briefing in the morning and met with Defense Secretary Mark Esper in the afternoon.


https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... ngratulate
Quote:
While speaking to reporters on the South Lawn, Trump was asked if he had a message for Poland on the anniversary of the Nazi invasion that took place on Sept. 1, 1939.

“Mr. President, do you have a message for Poland on the 80th anniversary of the Second World War?“ a reporter asked.

“I do have a great message for Poland,” Trump responded. “And we have Mike Pence, our vice president, is just about landing right now. And he is representing me."

"I look forward to being there soon. But I just want to congratulate Poland,” he continued. “It’s a great country with great people. We also have many Polish people in our country; it could be 8 million. We love our Polish friends. And I will be there soon.”
Congratulations for being invaded and treated brutally by the Nazis (and soon afterward, invaded by the Soviet Red Army as well)? It's pretty clear Trump has NO clue what happened to Poland or how that invasion became the start of WWII. He was probably just rambling in hopes that he'd say the right thing with some vague platitudes.




https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -while-hes
Quote:
Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly reportedly told President Trump that he would not write a tell-all book while Trump is in office.

...Kelly told the president that while he eventually intended to write about his time in the White House for history, he would wait until Trump had left the Oval Office, according to CNN. The network also reported that the promise was based on the condition that Trump didn't go after Kelly first.
Whoever said Trump corrupts or tarnishes just about everyone who works with him was right.




EDIT: No surprise, Trump himself drew that fake map addition. https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... th-sharpie

He's not going to be happy with Fox news either. https://thehill.com/media/460182-fox-ne ... landia-are
Quote:
Fox News chief anchor Shepard Smith on Thursday [said]... “Some things in Trumplandia are inexplicable,” ... “Maybe he got some bad info from somebody, maybe he made a mistake, maybe he was confused, we don’t know. But he was wrong. And since, for days and days, he’s been insisting — with fake visuals in hand — that he was right.”...

“Why would the president of the United States do this?” Smith said. “He decries fake news that isn’t and disseminates fake news that is. Think China pays the tariffs. The wall is going up. Historic inauguration crowds. Russia probe was a witch hunt. You need an ID to buy cereal. Noise from windmills causes cancer. It’s endless.”
Cue Trump meltdown in 5...4...3...2...

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 06 Sep , 2019 7:26 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-m ... ?r=US&IR=T
Quote:
Trump may have committed tax fraud by fabricating a loan to avoid paying income taxes on nearly $50 million
Quote:
President Donald Trump may have fabricated a loan to avoid paying taxes on nearly $50 million of income, Mother Jones reported in a bombshell investigation published on Thursday.

The controversy appears to be related to the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago and a shadowy shell company Trump owns called Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC. Media reports have found that the company does not earn revenue and is essentially worthless. Trump has said on his financial-disclosure forms that he owes more than $50 million to the company, which he controls...

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Sun 08 Sep , 2019 3:17 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
If you're an expert in this administration, you've been warned against giving information that may contradict Trump's ignorant pronouncements. This may sound trivial, but it should be very disturbing to everyone:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... rian-after
Quote:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reportedly warned its staff against providing information beyond official forecasts just hours after President Trump claimed in a tweet that Alabama could be impacted by Hurricane Dorian...

The email, which was sent to National Weather Service personnel, told employees to "stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts if questions arise from some national level social media posts which hit the news this afternoon.”

The Post noted that the email also cautioned staff against providing "any opinion" when faced with questions about the hurricane.

A NOAA meteorologist told the newspaper that the message was interpreted internally as a reference to the president's comments...
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... tweet-that
Quote:
Several former officials have accused the administration of caving to political pressure after NOAA disavowed a days-old tweet from the National Weather Service (NWS) that refuted Trump's claim about the storm's path...

Former NOAA Chief Operating Officer David Titley blasted the NOAA statement, saying it represented "perhaps the darkest day ever for @noaa leadership."...

Monica Medina, who worked as NOAA’s general counsel, tweeted Friday, “As a former @NOAA leader I can say two things with certainty. No NOAA Administrator I worked for would have done this. And I would have quit if I had been directed to agree to let this BS go out.”...

The statement also drew scrutiny from meteorologists ..“The tweet from NWS Birmingham was spot on and accurate," Birmingham-based meteorologist James Spann Jr. tweeted. "If they are coming after them, they might as well come after me. How in the world has it come to this?”...




Who the hell has the Trump administration put in charge in Zimbabwe?
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... fter-death
Quote:
The U.S. Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe.... had issued a tweet early Friday marking the death of Mugabe,... “The United States extends its condolences to the Mugabe family and the people of Zimbabwe as they mourn the passing of former President Robert Mugabe,” the embassy said in the now-deleted tweet. “We join the world in reflecting on his legacy in securing Zimbabwe’s independence.”

The tweet quickly sparked backlash online, with Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) questioning whether the embassy was running "a parody account."...

Mugabe was instrumental in gaining independence for Zimbabwe from the United Kingdom and overthrowing the majority-white ruling party in 1980. However, he was regarded as a serial violator of human rights during his 37-year tenure.

Mugabe was repeatedly accused of unleashing death squads on supporters of the opposition, rigging presidential elections and overseeing a falling economy that sparked poverty and hyperinflation.

He was sanctioned by the United Nations in 2003 over the human rights abuses and was ultimately removed from power in 2017 by a military coup after he appeared set to appoint his second wife as the next president....

The State Department released a more measured statement Friday recognizing the dual nature of Mugabe’s legacy...


https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/4 ... wer-courts
Quote:
President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are together carving out a lasting judicial legacy, one with ominous implications for reproductive health and rights. Thirteen right-wing judicial nominees were hastily confirmed before the Senate’s August recess, and Trump nominated 12 more last week to be confirmed when Congress returns on Monday....

[After preventing former President Obama from filling 100 vacancies, McConnell] took his foot off the brake and hit the accelerator, speeding confirmation of Trump’s judicial nominees, insisting there’s nothing “more important for America than confirming judges as rapidly” as possible. ...

While the quantity of appointments is up, the quality is down... To date, seven of Trump’s nominees have been deemed “not qualified,” meaning they did not meet the ABA committee’s standards with respect to one or more of its evaluation criteria: integrity, professional competence, or judicial temperament.

Allen Kobes, for example, was appointed to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018 despite his notable lack of legal experience. He had previously served as lead counsel in just two trials that led to a verdict, had just one appellate oral argument under his belt, had no credentials in legal scholarship, and authored no law review articles. Kobes and other judges like him are pushed through not on merit, but because of their prior support for anti-abortion laws...


btw, it seems we now know why Trump fired his personal assistant for saying something at an off-the-record dinner with reporters. It's apparently at Politico, though I found out in a news brief about Tiffany Trump (Trump's daughter who seems like a decent person) adopting a cat:
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing ... dopt-a-cat
Quote:
The adoption comes a week after Politico published a report saying President Trump’s former personal secretary, Madeleine Westerhout, was fired because she told reporters during an Aug. 17 dinner that Trump did not like appearing in photos with his daughter, Tiffany, because he thought she was overweight.

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Mon 09 Sep , 2019 2:37 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
Here's a clever thing - plan secret meetings with leaders of the Taliban at Camp David, then announce it in a tweet if you cancel them:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -president
What nation would trust US leaders, these days, with its secrets? They'd never know how long it would be before Trump felt like blurting them out.

btw, I'm not sure how many people realize that the Trump administration has been negotiating ONLY with the Taliban. The current government of Afghanistan has no say in these talks. From the articles I've read, they're not happy. And I don't blame them.

Edit: It seems the Camp David invitation was something Trump dreamed up by himself.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... liban-dead
Quote:
President Trump said Monday that peace talks with the Taliban are “dead as far as I’m concerned.”

Trump also defended his initial decision to set up the secret meeting with Taliban leaders at Camp David... “I took my own advice. I liked the idea of meeting. I’ve met with a lot of bad people and a lot of good people over the course of the last three years. I think that meeting is a great thing,” Trump told reporters on the White House’s South Lawn before departing for a campaign rally in North Carolina. “Otherwise, wars would never end.”

“We had a meeting scheduled. It was my idea, and it was my idea to terminate it,” Trump said...
Seems that Trump is increasingly running the government as a one-man show.






http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/ ... biden.html
Quote:
Trump Has Figured Out How to Corrupt the Entire Government
Quote:
Donald Trump came to the presidency a complete novice to government and often found his corrupt, authoritarian impulses frustrated by its bureaucracy. But he is slowly learning how to control the machine that has stymied him. This is the story of 2019, as Trump has replaced institutionalists attempting to curtail his grossest instincts with loyalists happy to indulge them. It is playing out across multiple dimensions. This is the through-line between several seemingly disconnected episodes from the last several days.

The pattern played out in its most absurd form via Trump’s manic insistence on justifying his inaccurate warning that Alabama “likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated” from Hurricane Dorian, at a time when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was forecasting the state faced no risk....

The controversy might appear absurd and contentless. But Trump views the stakes as high, not without reason. Among his supporters, Trump has created a cultlike devotion to his competence and honesty, both of which are threatened by acknowledging his falsehood about the hurricane...
Quote:
Also on Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported the Department of Justice is launching an antitrust investigation of automakers who had agreed with California to raise their emissions standards....

Trump took the agreement as a personal affront, raging publicly at the automakers for dealing with California and undercutting his leverage to loosen emissions standards...

It is not new for firms to tiptoe around a temperamental president. What’s novel is the Department of Justice being used as Trump’s legal muscle. The threat of a nasty tweet is now bolstered with the threat of massively expensive litigation...

Also on Friday, the Washington Post editorial page reported an explosive new development in Trump’s Ukraine scandal. The president has sent Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to pressure its government to supply evidence of misconduct by Joe Biden – even though there isn’t any sign Biden has done anything wrong...
Quote:
Increasingly, Republicans are dispensing with the fig leaf and flaunting their complicity. Putting money in Trump’s pocket by booking his properties has become a symbol of partisan solidarity...

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/ ... at-1484337
Quote:
Air Force crew made an odd stop on a routine trip: Trump’s Scottish resort
Now the layover is part of a broader House inquiry into military spending at and around the Trump property.
Quote:
In early Spring of this year, an Air National Guard crew made a routine trip from the U.S. to Kuwait to deliver supplies.

What wasn’t routine was where the crew stopped along the way: President Donald Trump’s Turnberry resort, about 50 miles outside Glasgow, Scotland.

Since April, the House Oversight Committee has been investigating why the crew on the C-17 military transport plane made the unusual stay — both en route to the Middle East and on the way back — at the luxury waterside resort, according to several people familiar with the incident. But they have yet to receive any answers from the Pentagon....



And the story behind the National Weather Service being told to support Trump, no matter what idiocy he says, deepens:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/clim ... tweet.html
Quote:
The Secretary of Commerce threatened to fire top employees at NOAA on Friday after the agency’s Birmingham office contradicted President Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian might hit Alabama, according to three people familiar with the discussion.

That threat led to an unusual, unsigned statement later that Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration disavowing the office’s own position that Alabama was not at risk...

Mr. Ross, the Commerce Secretary, intervened...early last Friday [and] phoned Neil Jacobs, the acting administrator of NOAA, from Greece where the secretary was traveling for meetings and instructed Dr. Jacobs to fix the agency’s perceived contradiction of the president.

Dr. Jacobs objected to the demand and was told that the political staff at NOAA would be fired if the situation was not fixed.......
It seems a shame we even have political staff at something like NOAA.



Speaking of shameful.
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing ... hip-report
Quote:
Hundreds of Bahamians attempting to flee the devastation caused by Hurricane Dorian were reportedly told to leave a ship if they did not have a visa to enter the United States.

Video posted Sunday on Twitter by Brian Entin, a reporter for Miami-based Fox affiliate WSVN, showed an announcement being made aboard the Balearia ferry, which was transporting evacuees from the Bahamas to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., saying visas are required for everyone on board attempting to enter the U.S.

Another announcement just made ordering any Bahamian without a US visa to disembark ferry — not allowed to evacuate. They were told before boarding it was ok with Bahamian passport and clean polce record. Something has now changed....
Some people are putting the blame on the ferry company and saying CBP wasn't involved (they seem to base this just on interviews with local field agents in Florida, though). Odd, though. If it was the ferry company, why did they allow them on board in the first place?

And the ferry company denies it was them - they say it was CBP:
Quote:
Here is the full story we put together after getting off the ferry this morning. Hurricane evacuees kicked off the boat. Crew on the boat blamed US Customs and Border Protection, CBP now blames the ferry company @Balearia .
This also seems to suggest they were told something by CBP. It's not a denial, just a sidestep. :
Quote:
"CBP was notified of a vessel preparing to embark an unknown number of passengers in Freeport and requested that the operator of the vessel coordinate with U.S. and Bahamian government officials in Nassau before departing The Bahamas," CBP told The Hill in a statement.

"Everyone who arrives to the United States from another country must present themselves to a CBP officer for inspection at an official CBP Port of Entry. All person must possess valid identity and travel documents," the agency said.
I suppose we'll have to see where this story goes in a few days.

Edit: Or maybe just a couple of hours?
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... om-bahamas
Quote:
President Trump said Monday that the United States needs to be “careful” in making sure everyone entering the country from the Bahamas... "We have to be very careful. Everybody needs totally proper documentation. Because look, the Bahamas has some tremendous problems with people going to the Bahamas who weren’t supposed to be there,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn at the White House. ... “I don’t want to allow people that weren’t supposed to be in the Bahamas to come into the United States, including some very bad people and some very bad gang members, and some very, very bad drug dealers,” Trump continued....

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 10 Sep , 2019 8:10 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/ ... 23634.html
Quote:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to annex the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank if he wins next week's general election... but said such a move would not be made before publication of a long-awaited US peace plan and consultations with President Donald Trump...

...The Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea constitute almost 30 percent of the West Bank. Some 65,000 Palestinians and about 11,000 illegal Israeli settlers live in the area - most of which is under Israeli military control in what is referred to as Area C...

..."Endless" US support has given Netanyahu the confidence to make such bold statements, said Qarmout. "If it was not for Trump, I don't think Netanyahu would have the courage to publicly talk about annexation."
Netanyahu practically came out and said "this is our opportunity while Trump is president"
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... lley-if-re
Quote:
“This is an historic opportunity that we may not have again,” Netanyahu said in his statement he delivered Tuesday.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/ ... 37292.html
Quote:
Israel has advanced plans for more than 2,300 illegal settlement homes in the occupied West Bank, the latest in a surge of such approvals since US President Donald Trump took office in 2017, according to an NGO....The 2,304 housing units are at various stages in the approval process, according to Peace Now, an Israeli group closely monitoring settlement building.
Dear Leader (and perhaps Kushner) enabled this. (Congress and past administrations have done their part too, and Israel has never been shy about pursuing its own goals, never mind international condemnation - after all, the US is always behind them - but this escalation is unusual). And whether or not the annexation actually happens, just the announcement is likely to cause more deaths and more hatred on both sides in the meantime.

I'm betting that Trump will soon issue a tweet supporting Netanyahu.

Edit: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... ies-israel
Quote:
The Arab League held an emergency session on Tuesday evening after the Israeli prime minister announced the plan in a live press conference.

...Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo condemned the plan as “a dangerous development and a new Israeli aggression by declaring the intention to violate the international law”. “The league regards these statements as undermining the chances of any progress in the peace process and will torpedo all its foundations,” the ministers said...
Whether they'll actually do anything is uncertain.
Quote:
Despite the implications for a future two-state solution, Arab states would be under significant pressure not to escalate if the annexation went ahead, analysts said.... Saudi Arabia and Israel share an interest in combating Iranian influence in the Middle East. Jordan and Egypt have long ago signed peace treaties with Israel, easing the flow of American aid and military equipment on which both depend.

Significant implications are likely to be felt across the border with the West Bank in Amman. “Jordan has real existential fears with any outcome other than a two-state solution,” said Osama al-Sharif, a Jordanian analyst and columnist.
The Guardian also points out Trump's role:
Quote:
Netanyahu hinted on Tuesday night that the plan had the support of the White House. “I am waiting to do this in maximum coordination with [Donald] Trump,” he said in a speech broadcast live on Israeli television.

A White House official said there had been no change in US policy and would not comment further.
Considering that our government is now "whatever Trump wants," that will be cold comfort to those who want peace and a fair solution.

With any luck, Netanyahu will be convicted of the corruption charges and saner heads will prevail.






btw, Bolton is out as National Security Advisor. (And good riddance :) )
But needless to say, Trump couldn't ask for his resignation like a normal person. Told him last night they'd talk today. Got rid of him this morning. I don't like Bolton one bit but Trump seems to go out of his way to be nasty.

I suppose we'll get Hannity as the next National Security Advisor.





I was pleased to see this. He spoke the truth to his government in memos that were never meant to be seen by our Idiot-in-Chief, who couldn't take it quietly or graciously when the memos where leaked. I'll bet it infuriates Trump though. :)
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... lled-trump
Quote:
Former British Prime Minister Theresa May recommended the ex-British ambassador who called President Trump “inept” become a lord.... Queen Elizabeth II is expected to honor the nominee along with the others on May’s list in keeping with the British tradition.

Speaking of things that will infuriate Trump:
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4607 ... hallengers
Quote:
Business Insider announced Tuesday it will host a debate featuring candidates who have announced GOP presidential primary challenges to President Trump. Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld (R) are slated to appear in the Sept. 24 debate, while former Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) has also been invited.

Trump on Monday indicated he would not debate the Republicans who have announced bids to challenge him for the 2020 GOP nomination

Last edited by aninkling on Wed 11 Sep , 2019 1:54 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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 11 Sep , 2019 1:34 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -as-family
Quote:
A 12-year-old girl who fled the Bahamas with her family during Hurricane Dorian was reportedly separated from her godmother by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials and still remains in a shelter despite her family's attempts to retrieve her.

The Miami Herald reported that Kaytora Paul was separated from her godmother at the Miami International Airport on Sunday night by CBP officials because her godmother is not biologically related to her.

...Paul's mother told the Herald that the girl's biological aunt was also told by CBP officials that she could not sponsor the child, forcing the 12-year-old to remain in the shelter while the family attempts to reunite with one another after being rescued...



There are more details about Netanyahu's plan in the Jerusalem Post:
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Prime ... ley-601207
The Jordan Valley is only the start in his ambitions.
Quote:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that if reelected, he will apply sovereignty over all settlements in Judea and Samaria, starting with the Jordan Valley.
There definitely seems to have been coordination on this with the US
Quote:
“Over the past few months I led a diplomatic effort, and over the past few days the diplomatic conditions have become ready,” Netanyahu said in what was seen as a reference to his meeting in London on Thursday night with US Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and long phone calls last week with US Vice President Mike Pence..

Israeli officials informed the White House in advance about Netanyahu’s statement. .
And Kushner's yet-to-be-released "peace" plan seems to give Netanyahu what he wants:
Quote:
Sources close to Netanyahu said that Israel keeping the Jordan Valley is in Trump’s plan.
In other words, the US seems to be deeply involved in this. I suppose it makes sense. Trump seems happy to normalize Russia's annexation of Crimea too.




Too funny not to share. Apparently we have some super-secret powers greater than nuclear power, according to Trump:
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-s ... ?r=US&IR=T
Quote:
"We do not seek conflict. But if anyone dares to strike our land, we will respond with the full measure of American power and the iron will of the American spirit and that spirit is unbreakable," Trump said. "If for any reason they come back to our country, we will go wherever they are anduse power the likes of which the US has never used before and I'm not even talking about nuclear power."

He sounds like some blustering Iranian religious leader:
Quote:
"They will never have seen anything like what will happen to them," Trump added. "No enemy on Earth can match the overwhelming strength, skill and might of the American armed forces."

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 12 Sep , 2019 1:29 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/ ... es-1491351
Quote:
The U.S. government concluded within the last two years that Israel was most likely behind the placement of cell-phone surveillance devices that were found near the White House and other sensitive locations around Washington, D.C., according to three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter...

The devices were likely intended to spy on President Donald Trump, one of the former officials said, as well as his top aides and closest associates -- though it’s not clear whether the Israeli efforts were successful.

President Trump is reputed to be lax in observing White House security protocols. ...

One former senior intelligence official noted that after the FBI and other agencies concluded that the Israelis were most likely responsible for the devices, the Trump administration took no action to punish or even privately scold the Israeli government...

The former senior intelligence official criticized how the administration handled the matter, remarking on the striking difference from past administrations, which likely would have at a very minimum issued a démarche, or formal diplomatic reprimand, to the foreign government condemning its actions.

“I’m not aware of any accountability at all,” said the former official.
It's not too surprising, I suppose. From a story last year:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/us/p ... urity.html
Quote:
When President Trump calls old friends on one of his iPhones to gossip, gripe or solicit their latest take on how he is doing, American intelligence reports indicate that Chinese spies are often listening — and putting to use invaluable insights into how to best work the president and affect administration policy, current and former American officials said.

Mr. Trump’s aides have repeatedly warned him that his cellphone calls are not secure, and they have told him that Russian spies are routinely eavesdropping on the calls, as well. But aides say the voluble president, who has been pressured into using his secure White House landline more often these days, has still refused to give up his iPhones. White House officials say they can only hope he refrains from discussing classified information when he is on them...
EDIT: As always, there's a corollary that would raise eyebrows if it was anyone but Trump:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... ying-on-us
Quote:
President Trump said Thursday he does not believe the Israeli government is spying on the United States.
His remarks came after a news report said U.S. officials thought Israel had placed surveillance devices around Washington.

“I don’t think the Israelis are spying on us,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. “I really would find that hard to believe.” Trump said he has a strong relationship with Israel, pointing to his administration’s policies on Iran, of which the Israeli government has been supportive. Trump later added that "anything is possible" but repeated that he doesn't believe it. ..
Hence the lack of any government response to the spying, I suppose.




https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/ ... nt-1491102
Quote:
Meet the motley crew Trump is eyeing to replace Bolton

Some names Trump has floated. Others are quietly fanning the speculation themselves. Some, predictably, often go on Fox News.
Quote:
Two are top aides to Pompeo: Brian Hook, who deals with Iran, and Stephen Biegun, who deals with North Korea. The other two are Fred Fleitz, a former intelligence official and Bolton aide whom Trump likes; and Paula Dobriansky, who has years of experience at both the NSC and the upper echelons of the State Department during past Republican administrations...

Biegun in particular is highly regarded in Washington...has extensive government and private sector experience, and he served as executive secretary of the NSC during the George W. Bush administration.

Hook has become a visible figure because of his role driving the administration’s harsh policies toward Iran, although for a long time Trump reportedly had no idea who he was. ...However, Hook is a subject of an inspector general’s investigation into allegations that he engaged in political retaliation against career government staffers at the State Department...

Dobriansky isn’t in the Trump administration but has discussed various roles in the past. She’s well-regarded in Washington, and would likely carry a lower profile than Bolton if she got the role.

Fleitz would bring an intelligence background to the job — but also a close link to Bolton...

Then there’s a group of names that Washington insiders have been circulating since Bolton’s ousting on Tuesday.

Those include Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany; Robert O’Brien, a Pompeo aide who deals with hostage issues; Keith Kellogg, national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence; and Ricky Waddell, a former deputy national security adviser under Trump. Jack Keane and Douglas Macgregor, both retired military officers who frequently appear on Fox News, are also part of the discussion...

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/ ... ip-1488514
Quote:
Inside Trump and Bolton’s spectacular split

The president says he fired his national security adviser. Bolton says he resigned. Either way, their conflict was deep — and irreconcilable
.
Quote:
Ultimately, it was hearing media accounts about how Bolton had advised the president to scuttle a meeting with Taliban leaders at Camp David that proved a breaking point for Trump, according to sources in and out of the administration. In the president’s telling, he had taken his own counsel in arriving at the decision to call off the meeting and end the negotiations, and he was infuriated to hear Bolton credited with influencing his decision.
Quote:
critics cautioned that the president’s fourth national security adviser is likely to have little sway with the president.

“The next national security adviser of the United States is going to be Donald Trump, just like the current national security adviser of the United States is in fact Donald Trump,” Rothkopf said. “The next national security adviser is going to have [the job] in name only.”

_________________

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


Top
Profile Quote
Display: Sort by: Direction:
Post Reply   Page 58 of 65  [ 1284 posts ]
Return to “The Symposium” | Jump to page « 156 57 58 59 6065 »
Jump to: