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You've been Trumped!

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 06 Apr , 2018 4:16 pm
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And more news today (one might be a clearer version of a story that broke last night) :

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... ed-species
Quote:
The Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is proposing weakening a rule in place for decades that gives threatened species on private land the same protections as endangered species.

The FWS announced Monday it is taking into consideration the “removal” of the policy, adopted under the 1973 Endangered Species Act, that prohibits the harming, harassing, killing, and habitat destruction of threatened species.
...“Species listed as a threatened species after the effective date of this rule, if finalized, would have protective regulations only if the Service promulgates a species-specific rule,” read the rule.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... my-daniels
Quote:
Evangelical leaders are planning a meeting with Donald Trump in June following continuing developments in the scandal over his alleged affair with pornographic actor Stormy Daniels, it was reported on Friday.

Four anonymous sources told radio network NPR that the meeting was intended to address concerns about how the midterms might be affected both by the president’s divisive leadership style and his alleged sex scandals.

...Early polling suggests Daniels’ claim she had an affair with Trump before he was president has not had a substantial impact on white evangelicals’ attitudes towards Trump.
I guess that tells us what their priorities are- how Trump cheating on his wife and then paying off the woman will affect midterm elections. What a sorry bunch of "Christians." (Personally, I don't really care who Trump has sex with, but coming from a bunch that's always pontificating about moral values and the sanctity of the family, that attitude is pretty hypocritical.)



A former immigration judge's opinion on Trump's demand that every immigration judge decide on at least 700 cases in a year:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html
Quote:
It’s a principle that has been a hallmark of our legal culture: The president shouldn’t be able to tell judges what to do.

No longer. The Trump administration is intent on imposing a quota system on federal immigration judges, tying their evaluations to the number of cases they decide in a year. This is an affront to judicial independence and the due process of law.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/th ... story.html
Quote:
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto delivered his most direct public rebuke of President Trump on Thursday afternoon, in a national address that characterized Mexico as willing to cooperate with the United States but not at the expense of its sovereignty or dignity.

...In the past few decades, Mexico has become a far more cooperative partner of Washington in fighting drug-trafficking, terror threats and illegal migration. But Mexican politicians have called for reducing bilateral cooperation if Trump militarizes the border.

Trump’s move comes as Mexico is in the midst of a hotly contested campaign for president. The leading candidate is Andrés Manuel López Obrador , a center-left populist. On Wednesday, he responded to Trump’s latest moves by declaring that “we will not accept the use of force, the militarization of the border.”

Mexico’s Senate on Wednesday unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution that urged the government to end cooperation with the United States on illegal immigration and drug trafficking because of Trump’s plans to deploy National Guard troops.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... itt-report
Quote:
White House chief of staff John Kelly has told President Trump that he thinks Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt has to go, The Wall Street Journal reported.

But despite Kelly’s conclusion — and that of other White House aides — that Pruitt’s recent scandals should push him out of the Trump administration, the president doesn’t want to fire him, the Journal said Friday, citing a White House official.

Trump instead values Pruitt’s deregulatory policies and commitment to his agenda.

_________________

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


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Sat 07 Apr , 2018 1:58 pm
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This is pretty damning to Pruitt's claim he had to fly first class to avoid ugly incidents with the public.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... his-travel
Quote:
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt reportedly flew coach for certain flights home when taxpayers were not paying for his travel.

An EPA official speaking on the condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that Pruitt flew coach on weekend trips for Oklahoma Sooners football games.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... ons-report
Quote:
EPA documents and sources revealed that the agency spent about $3 million on a 20-person, full-time security detail and travel expenses for Pruitt, according to a new analysis by The Associated Press.

...Pruitt also come under fire for his use of a security detail that is three times the size of his predecessor's, as well as his first-class travel habits.

The AP reported that soon after joining the administration, Pruitt appointed EPA Senior Special Agent Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta to head his security detail. Perrotta is reportedly responsible for the expansion of Pruitt’s security detail, and approved the director’s first-class travel. Perrotta also reportedly coordinated the installation of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth for Pruitt’s office, despite the EPA headquarters already having such a booth elsewhere in the building.



http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -practices
Quote:
President Trump signed a memorandum on Friday ordering agencies to "expeditiously end" the practice known as "catch and release" that allows immigrants caught in the U.S. without proper documents to be released from detention while their cases play out in court
There will, of course, be consequences. Including where to house these people. I'm concerned there might be more stories like this one coming:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aclu-accus ... ng-asylum/
Quote:
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) accused the U.S. government on Monday of unlawfully separating a Congolese woman and her 7-year-old daughter by holding them in different immigration facilities, two time zones apart, after they sought asylum four months ago. The ACLU said the family's case is one example of the practice of President Trump's administration to target immigrant families who are seeking asylum through processes established under U.S. law.

...The mother and daughter entered the U.S. together in California in November and turned themselves into U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents. Initially, the two were kept together. But about five days after they entered the U.S., the child was taken away "screaming and crying, pleading with guards not to take her away from her mother," according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Diego. The woman and her daughter have spoken about six times by phone since their separation.

...In a January interview with The Associated Press, Tom Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said there "have been some separations done," particularly in cases where parents have been accused of paying smugglers to bring their children across the border.
They were finally united, thanks to various advocates. But what about the people who don't get the ACLU's attention?
https://wtop.com/africa/2018/03/immigra ... ion-by-us/
Quote:
Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, said the woman was allowed to travel to Chicago from San Diego on Tuesday, after a DNA test requested by the government confirmed she was the girl’s mother. He says the daughter was released late Friday and brought to a Chicago shelter where she and her mother will be staying.

The Federalist, a conservative publication, has dug deeper into this story. It looks like this may not have been an isolated case, but instead an ugly and systematic policy. I've provided some highlights below, but this long article is well worth reading :
http://thefederalist.com/2018/03/07/mot ... migration/
Quote:
This wasn’t some gross government oversight, where the wedge of incompetent and inflexible bureaucracy came between a mother and child. This was an intentional separation that is no one-off instance of cruelty on the part of law-enforcement, but rather an emblem of a systematic approach taken by immigration enforcement agencies in the name of deterring immigration.

...According to the lawsuit, the mother’s initial screening revealed she had a “credible fear” of returning to Congo. Despite the turmoil of her home country, “credible fear” is generally a low bar for those seeking asylum, according to Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. In a Senate hearing in January, she told Sen. Dianne Feinstein: “There are those who truly do fear for their lives.” But, “There are many other — many others, unfortunately, that we find who are trained by those who are trafficking them to just use those words. And given the laws in court cases, we must immediately treat them as if they are seeking asylum and put them into the system.”

Loopholes like this have likely contributed to the backlog of pending asylum applications, and may be encouraging people to come here. ... But instead of making it a priority to raise the standards of “credible fear” or otherwise close the loophole, the government has implemented a “deterrence” strategy of separating families.
Quote:
Current “informal” practices also run counter to the Flores Settlement Agreement of 1997 currently binding on U.S. immigration services. It states, “The INS [now USCIS, ICE, and CBP] treats, and shall continue to treat, all minors in its custody with dignity, respect and special concern for their particular vulnerability as minors. The INS shall place each detained minor in the least restrictive setting appropriate to the minor’s age and special needs.”...The Flores agreement further states, “The licensed program in which the minor is placed shall make and record the prompt and continuous efforts on its part toward family reunification

...The Trump administration is seeking to end the Flores agreement as part of its efforts to reform immigration laws. While the White House proposal suggests that legislation regarding the “care of minors” replace the agreement, they did not describe what such legislation should entail. If current actions are any indication, it would permit separation of parents and children for no greater reason than deterring immigration.
Quote:
“The government isn’t providing statistics on separations,” said Lee Gelernt, lead attorney and deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “Children are being separated all over the country and detention centers are overwhelmed. What we’re hearing is there are hundreds of cases.”
Quote:
....the effect of prosecution is that parents quickly plead guilty to the misdemeanor charge of improper entry so they can be reunited with their children. The Western District of Texas’ federal public defender’s office “contends such separations violate migrants’ rights to due process,” arguing the leverage of taking the children away amounts to involuntary confession.
Quote:
Due to the gross inefficiency of immigration services, children separated from their parents are kept far longer than necessary at the taxpayer’s expense. Why? Because the three agencies involved in immigration (DOJ, HHS, DHS) lack comprehensive processes for tracking these individuals, they’re frequently “lost in the system.” ....it could take weeks or even months to reunite them.
Quote:
Yet despite the catastrophic implementation of this informal “deterrence strategy,” there’s a chance that an iteration of this practice could become written policy. A proposal to separate families awaiting deportation has already been approved by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is pending approval from Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
Quote:
[Various examples of Trump's actions and his] reported derogatory question of “Why do we want all these people from sh-thole countries coming here?” demonstrate he’s serious about cracking down on immigration — both legal and illegal.

No immigrant is insulated from that goal — not even a mother and seven year old child fleeing political violence in central Africa, who followed all the right processes. ....All this leaves one to wonder if the administration’s immigration stance is about the rule of law so much as suppressing immigration, even by unethical means.

_________________

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


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Mon 09 Apr , 2018 1:28 pm
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Peter Navarro demonstrates why serious economists - and anyone with a brain - consider him an idiot.

http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk ... p-call-for
Quote:
"How cynical it is for the Chinese, basically, rather than respond graciously and stop doing all this bad stuff they're doing, to attack American farmers? I think that's going to be a wake-up call for Americans," Navarro said on NBC's "Meet The Press."

http://thehill.com/policy/international ... conditions
Quote:
China on Monday ripped U.S. actions in the trade dispute between the two countries, saying it is impossible to negotiate with Washington under present conditions.“Under the current circumstances, both sides, even more, cannot have talks on these issues,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters, according to Reuters. “The United States with one hand wields the threat of sanctions, and at the same time says they are willing to talk. I’m not sure who the United States is putting on this act for,” Geng continued.

The remarks come on the heels of a Sunday tweet from President Trump in which the president said China would eventually eliminate its trade barriers in the midst of the dispute.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/38204 ... with-angst
Quote:
Republican lawmakers are returning to Washington this week with their eyes focused on an escalating trade war with China that has roiled the stock market and put them on edge over the economy and this fall’s midterms.

Congressional aides say Trump’s tariffs will be the hot topic of conversation at party caucus meetings this week, even as they wonder what leverage they can exert on a president who vowed to put his stamp on trade. “I don’t know there’s much you can do there,” said one senior Senate GOP aide.


http://thehill.com/homenews/house/38202 ... e-on-trump
Quote:
Few Republicans in Washington are willing to go head-to-head with President Trump, but there is one band of GOP members willing to stand up to the leader of their own party: lawmakers who have announced their retirements.

While it’s not uncommon for members to feel far more liberated on their way out the door, it has taken on a whole new meaning in the Trump era, where lawmakers are confronted daily by a never-ending stream of White House controversies.

The GOP’s retirement caucus has provided some of the most biting commentary on the president in recent months, with Rep. Ryan Costello (Pa.) — the latest Republican to jump ship from Congress — even saying that his frustrations with the Trump administration helped drive him to the exit.


http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... ns-role-in
Quote:
Drafts of a federal report on sea level rise and storm surge reportedly no longer include any mentions of humans' role in climate change. Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting found that National Park Service officials had scrubbed the mentions from drafts of the report.

...According to Reveal, mentions of "human activities" causing climate change were deleted from the report, as was the word "anthropogenic," used to describe the impact humans have on nature.


http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... hite-house
Quote:
National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton is leaving the administration, a senior White House official confirmed to The Hill on Sunday evening. It is the latest move in a wide-ranging shakeup of President Trump’s national security and foreign policy teams.

...Anton has been a frequent presence on television defending the administration’s foreign policy stances, occasionally clashing with cable news anchors in trenchant terms.

...He was initially seen as a fervent advocate of the “America First” stances put forth by Trump during the campaign. He was hired to work with the first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, whose tenure was infamously short.

After Flynn’s departure, critics contend Anton aligned himself with the more moderate worldview espoused by McMaster and his allies.

“Anton got the job for one reason — he was the most pro-Trump of anyone associated with the national security area,” said one source close to the White House.This source insisted, “He completely flipped. He was brought in because of Flynn but he became the biggest cheerleader for the McMaster faction that fought against implementing the president’s policies.”


Edit to add:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... t-for-help
Quote:
The Trump family’s hotel business asked Panama’s president for help in their battle to retain control of a property in Panama before an emergency arbitrator said they would not be granted control of the hotel, according to The Associated Press.

The law firm representing the Trump Organization sent a letter to Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela on March 22 that asked him to intervene in the battle for control of the hotel and warned that there could be consequences for the country, the AP reported.

...The Trump Organization did not respond to questions from the AP about whether President Trump knew about the letter.
A more detailed report is here: https://apnews.com/bcba3f280f5f4ce78cc10a865ca617cb
Quote:
The letter raises questions about the president's family business matter-of-factly requesting another president's help in a private business matter by invoking a treaty signed by the U.S. and Panama. It says that lawyers representing the Trump Organization are aware of "the separation of powers of the State," but essentially asks Panama's president to intervene in the judicial process.

A headline on the front page of Panama's La Prensa newspaper Monday said, "Trump Organization Pressures Varela," and coverage described the letter as a warning that there could be consequences for Panama if the old management team was not reinstated.

Analyst I. Roberto Eisenmann, a founder of La Prensa, said the letter does not make sense juridically. "President Trump and the family Trump Organization are using the presidency of the United States improperly for their personal business," Eisenmann said. "It is something somewhat embarrassing to see a president of the United States in that situation."

The letter was copied to Panamanian cabinet officials, as well as presidents of the Supreme Court and National Assembly, among others.
Related:
https://www.vox.com/2017/12/30/16832964 ... gton-hotel
Quote:
President Donald Trump’s isn’t as separate from his businesses as he would like the public to think. Throughout his campaign and through his first few months as president, Trump has said he would distance himself from his Trump Organization and hand it over to his sons in lieu of divesting entirely, as ethics experts say he should. They fear that otherwise he will use the presidency for his own personal gain or that his policies will be influenced by his business interests.

...On Friday, [the Daily Beast] published a September 12 email from Jeng Chi Hung, director of revenue management for the Trump International Hotel in Washington. In it he wrote that he met with Trump, who asked specific questions about the hotel and his business. The message says:

The company is interesting to work for being under the Trump umbrella. DJT is supposed to be out of the business and passed on to his sons, but he's definitely still involved... so it's interesting and unique in that way. I had a brief meeting with him a few weeks ago, and he was asking about banquet revenues and demographics. And, he asked if his presidency hurt the businesses. So, he seems self aware about things, at least more than he lets on. I am far left leaning politically, so working here has been somewhat of a challenge for me. But, it's all business.

It’s not clear when Hung met with Trump. Mickael Damelincourt, the hotel’s managing director, told the Daily Beast that Hung made Trump’s comments up “in an effort to enhance his sense of importance to a former employer.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/us/p ... d=pl-share
Quote:
The F.B.I. on Monday raided the office of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, seizing records related to several topics including payments to a pornographic-film actress.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III,... The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, but likely resulted from information he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York.

...The payments to Ms. Clifford are only one of many topics being investigated, according to a person briefed on the search. The F.B.I. also seized emails, tax documents and business records, the person said.
More details emerging:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... gn-finance
Quote:
President Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, is being investigated for possible bank fraud and campaign finance violations, The Washington Post reported Monday.

_________________

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


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 10 Apr , 2018 12:10 am
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And Trump responds. Apparently, it's a "disgrace" and an attack on our country for federal prosecutors in New York to get a search warrant and investigate criminal behavior. What's worse is that Pence (the oh-so-moral, righteous Christian), Bolton and others are implicitly supporting Trump. I have no idea how they live with themselves.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... a-disgrace
Quote:
President Trump on Monday blasted the FBI for raiding the office of his personal attorney Michael Cohen, calling it a “disgrace” and a “pure and simple witch hunt.”

“It’s a real disgrace,” Trump told reporters at the White House as Vice President Mike Pence, national security adviser John Bolton and other officials looked on. “It’s an attack on our country in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for.”
Of course, the campaign finance violations they're investigating will involve Trump. I wonder about the bank fraud.



btw, this might be a good time to post this old article from Vanity Fair.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06 ... lationship
Quote:
In 1973, a brash young would-be developer from Queens met one of New York’s premier power brokers: Roy Cohn, whose name is still synonymous with the rise of McCarthyism and its dark political arts. With the ruthless attorney as a guide, Trump propelled himself into the city’s power circles and learned many of the tactics that would inexplicably lead him to the White House years later.
Quote:
For author Sam Roberts, the essence of Cohn’s influence on Trump was the triad: “Roy was a master of situational immorality . . . . He worked with a three-dimensional strategy, which was: 1. Never settle, never surrender. 2. Counter-attack, counter-sue immediately. 3. No matter what happens, no matter how deeply into the muck you get, claim victory and never admit defeat.”


btw, Trump sending the National Guard to the border is getting a response from Mexico.
http://thehill.com/policy/international ... with-trump
Quote:
Mexico says it will review its collaborative efforts with the United States on border security, trade and more in response to President Trump’s increasingly combative comments.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto met with his Cabinet on Sunday and ordered them to review all aspects of his country’s relationship with the U.S., Reuters reported on Monday. The review will last “a few weeks,” and then Peña Nieto will make a decision on how to proceed, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray Caso said.

“The key thing here is that it’s not just words. This stance needs to have practical consequences,” he said.
What else did Trump expect, especially in an election year for Mexico? He seems to forget they're a sovereign nation, not his subordinates.

_________________

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


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 10 Apr , 2018 1:12 am
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Quite a day. The NY Times broke a story that Mueller's team is investigating interactions Trump has with countries beyond Russia:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/us/p ... nchuk.html
Quote:
The special counsel is investigating a payment made to President Trump’s foundation by a Ukrainian steel magnate for a talk during the campaign...

[the Trump Organization] handed over documents about a $150,000 donation that the Ukrainian billionaire, Victor Pinchuk, made in September 2015 to the Donald J. Trump Foundation in exchange for a 20-minute appearance by Mr. Trump that month through a video link to a conference in Kiev.

Michael D. Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer whose office and hotel room were raided on Monday in an apparently unrelated case, solicited the donation.

...The payment from Mr. Pinchuk “is curious because it comes during a campaign and is from a foreigner and looks like an effort to buy influence,” said Marcus S. Owens, a former head of the Internal Revenue Service division that oversees tax-exempt organizations. He called the donation “an unusual amount of money for such a short speech.”
Quote:
The inquiry into the Trump Organization’s payments from foreign nationals underscores how diffuse Mr. Trump’s sources of income have been over many years. And the destination of Mr. Pinchuk’s donation — the Trump Foundation instead of the president’s personal coffers — raised fresh questions about how the president handled the entity he set up to deal with charitable giving.
"No comment" from lawyers for Cohen, Trump or the Trump Organization, so far.

_________________

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


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 10 Apr , 2018 1:09 pm
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A couple of articles related to the raid on Trump's longtime lawyer:


http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... rney-rules
Quote:
The husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway responded to President Trump on Twitter after Trump tweeted that "attorney client privilege is dead" following a raid on the offices of his lawyer, Michael Cohen.

George Conway retweeted the message Tuesday morning from the president and included a link to the Justice Department's website explaining why Cohen's offices were not protected from a Monday no-knock FBI raid by attorney-client privilege.

From the Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... aw/557600/
Quote:
Hours after the FBI raided the office, home, and hotel room of his sometime-personal attorney Michael Cohen, President Trump delivered an angry response at the White House on Monday.

The group of people he targeted is wide and deep: Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, former FBI Director James Comey, and his own appointee as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Taken together, however, it becomes apparent that Trump is not really angry at individuals so much as he is at the rule of law itself.

The raid is extraordinary, not least because Cohen has served as a lawyer for Trump. The requirements for seeking and obtaining a warrant for such a raid to override attorney-client privilege are strenuous and lengthy.

...Also of note is the fact that the special counsel did not oversee the raid.

...In a shocking turn of phrase, even by his standards, Trump said, “So I just heard they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys.” Of course, “they” didn’t “break in”—they obtained a search warrant: sought by the U.S. Attorney, with the sign-off of the deputy attorney general, and approved by a magistrate judge. “They” means the FBI, part of Trump’s own executive branch, acting according to the law.

And an old article from Newsweek (2016), which may help explain the raid with no notice. I doubt things have changed.
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/11/11/dona ... 15120.html
Quote:
Over the course of decades, Donald Trump’s companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders. These tactics—exposed by a Newsweek review of thousands of pages of court filings, judicial orders and affidavits from an array of court cases—have enraged judges, prosecutors, opposing lawyers and the many ordinary citizens entangled in litigation with Trump. In each instance, Trump and entities he controlled also erected numerous hurdles that made lawsuits drag on for years, forcing courtroom opponents to spend huge sums of money in legal fees as they struggled—sometimes in vain—to obtain records

Background on the Panama hotel dispute - the one where the Trump organization's letter to Panama's president made headlines there. Note the alleged document shredding.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/wor ... 370267002/
Quote:
One of President Trump’s family businesses is battling an effort to physically evict its team of executives from a luxury hotel in Panama where they manage operations, and police have been called to keep the peace, The Associated Press has learned. Witnesses told the AP they saw Trump’s executives carrying files to a room for shredding.

Representatives of the hotel owners’ association formally sought to fire Trump’s management team Thursday by hand-delivering termination notices to them at the Trump International Hotel and Tower, according to a Panamanian legal complaint filed by Orestes Fintiklis, who controls 202 of the property’s 369 hotel units.


...The showdown is the newest low in a months-long fight over control of the property. Last August, Fintiklis’ Miami-based Ithaca Capital Partners bought the 202 units in a fire sale from the property’s struggling developer. As part of the deal, Trump Hotels sought and received some assurances that Ithaca would not seek to act against its interests as hotel manager.

Relations quickly soured amid abysmal hotel occupancy numbers and allegations by Ithaca and other hotel unit owners of financial mismanagement or misconduct. In October, Ithaca Capital led a push to terminate Trump Hotel’s management contract and seek compensatory damages. Trump’s company – which he still owns but does not directly control – refused to hand over control of the property, arguing that the vote to fire Trump Hotels was invalid. A Panamanian court declined to support that claim in December, and the parties have since been fighting in court.
More details in the article.



https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/ ... se-meeting
Quote:
The chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group met Donald Trump at the White House during a visit to pitch a potentially lucrative new product to administration officials, the Guardian has learned.

David D Smith, whose company has been criticised for making its anchors read a script echoing Trump’s attacks on the media, said he briefed officials last year on a system that would enable authorities to broadcast direct to any American’s phone.

The company has been a driving force in the development of a new broadcasting standard known as Next Gen TV, and is one of the first involved in making chips for televisions, cellphones and other devices to receive the new transmissions. A broadcasting industry group, of which Sinclair is a prominent member, lobbied federal authorities last year to force manufacturers to incorporate the chips in all new devices... [but] the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided last November to make incorporating chips voluntary.
The alleged justification for forcing manufacturers to install the chips is that the government could send messages directly to people during a public emergency. Though I thought that sort of thing was already available if you chose to participate. Not that long ago, there was a news story about a bunch of people on the East Coast getting a false alert tsunami notice on their cellphones.

Among other things, Smith also defended his company's "must run" pro-Trump segments and the recent "we're not giving you fake news - but other news media is!" segment controversy:
Quote:
Smith tried to dismiss criticism of Sinclair that has mounted since CNN revealed news anchors across the US were being instructed to read identical scripts decrying “fake” news, which mirrored Trump’s long-running attack on journalism.

Describing the controversy as “the most absurd thing I’ve ever seen in my life”, Smith claimed rank-and-file Sinclair staff who had been expressing dismay to media reporters did not understand that the scripted segments were in their own interest.

....As for the current argument about his company’s news broadcasts, Smith declared himself the winner and said he would not make concessions. “I don’t know what I would change,” said Smith, “because everything that we’ve done is absolutely unassailable under any circumstances.”


https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... es/557561/
Quote:
An Internal Email Contradicts Scott Pruitt's Account of Controversial Raises

The EPA administrator has said he “didn’t know” about unusual salary bumps given to a pair of trusted aides, but a message from one of those staffers claims otherwise
Over the weekend, Trump reiterated his support for Pruitt.

_________________

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


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 10 Apr , 2018 2:53 pm
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Breaking news:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -resigning
Quote:
President Trump’s top homeland security aide, Tom Bossert, is resigning, the White House said on Tuesday.
Given that this comes in the middle of Trump's response to the chemical attack in Syria, I suspect it might indicate a major disagreement. Bossert has been a spokesperson to the media about Syria.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/ ... ump-508167
Quote:
White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert said on Sunday that nothing should be taken "off the table” after reports of an apparent chemical attack in Syria.

Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” Bossert said President Donald Trump’s national security team had been reviewing photos and information throughout the night.
I have a bad feeling about this sudden resignation. I assume that whatever Trump has decided is unacceptable to Bossert, which makes me wonder what could be bad enough to make him resign.


Edit: Canadian news says he didn't resign on his own. Bolton got rid of him.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-home ... -1.4612733
Quote:
Bossert left at request of Trump's new national security adviser, John Bolton, who began work Monday



The Trump administration has fired an EPA employee whose document provided evidence against Pruitt.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... rity-needs
Quote:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) removed ...Mario Caraballo...deputy associate administrator of the EPA's Office of Homeland Security. His office wrote a report in February evaluating a memo by Pruitt’s security detail that reported various apparent threats against him to justify his need for 24-hour security and first-class flying, among other steps.

Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) used the report earlier Tuesday, along with other information from the Secret Service and elsewhere, to call into question Pruitt’s security actions, which have cost millions of dollars.

A source told Politico that the EPA justified firing Caraballo by citing an issue from his military service years ago that had been resolved and reviewed by the EPA, but that agency leaders were unhappy with Caraballo’s report.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... nators-say
Quote:
Internal Environmental Protection Agency documents don’t support the EPA's contention that Administrator Scott Pruitt needs round-the-clock security and first-class flights, two leading Democratic senators say.

Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said on Tuesday that various records question the EPA’s contentions that Pruitt has faced an “unprecedented” number of death threats and that the agency “has identified specific, ongoing threats associated with the administrator’s air travel.”

“These assertions do not appear to be consistent with the non-public EPA documents we have obtained,” the two senators wrote in a letter to Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).

Barasso's response:
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... cuments-on
Quote:
The head of the Senate committee that oversees the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is blasting two Democratic senators for releasing "sensitive" internal EPA documents related to Administrator Scott Pruitt's expensive 24-hour security detail.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said he was "deeply troubled" by the decisions of two other committee members, Democratic Sens. Tom Carper (Del.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), to write him a letter that disclosed sections of the EPA document.

Extraordinarily, Pruitt's chief of staff appears ready to take the blame for Pruitt's unethical raises to the staffers:
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... troversial
Quote:
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt’s chief of staff said on Tuesday that he is responsible for giving two top aides significant raises after the White House rejected the request.

Ryan Jackson said the move to use a special authority was all his and that Pruitt had nothing to do with it."Administrator Pruitt had zero knowledge of the amount of the raises, nor the process by which they transpired.
Sure he didn't.

However...
Quote:
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) alleged Monday that if Pruitt truly didn’t know about the raises, the EPA broke the law.

_________________

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


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 11 Apr , 2018 2:52 am
A green apple painted red
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Stalinist liberals. I wonder if anyone here can appreciate how hard I'm blue-screening right now.
Quote:
Advertisers drop Ingraham after she blames boycott on 'Stalinist' liberals
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/38250 ... ahams-show

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Mon 16 Apr , 2018 4:17 pm
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Extremist commentator insults activist high school student, who calls for a boycott of her advertisers and those advertisers get worried enough to drop her show. :) It's amazing how much media these days seems like a soap opera.

Sideshows, as far as I'm concerned.



From The Atlantic, an analysis entitled "Unfit to Command":
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... nd/558074/
Quote:
The weekend news from Washington featured two story lines: the U.S.-led coalition missile strikes against Syrian government forces, and President Trump’s most extreme Twitter meltdown to date. The question for all the world to worry over: How closely are these two story lines interconnected? How and to what extent is the president’s increasingly extreme mental state obtruding on the national security of the United States?

The most important business of the day on Friday, April 13, was to sign off on that night’s planned missile strike against government forces in Syria. The decision was a heavy one, involving risks of conflict with Russia and Iran. ... And yet that’s not where Trump’s brain was. Starting at 8 a.m. that day and continuing into the afternoon, the president erupted in a sequence of rage tweets against former FBI director James Comey, demanding that he be prosecuted, calling him a “slime ball,” and congratulating himself for firing Comey

...Yet when the president stepped before the TV cameras at 8 p.m. to announce the strikes, most pundits and most politicians temporarily disregarded that same-day evidence of the president’s agitated mental state. The impulse to rally around the flag seized American elites, even many Trump critics, who saluted the president’s leadership. The strong dormant desire to discover some normality in this most abnormal administration reasserted itself. As happened the last time he launched missiles into Syria, almost exactly a year before, Trump went to bed that night to praise that he had proven himself presidential.

...On Sunday morning, Trump apparently awoke again in a state of crazed rage. He was angry that his Saturday morning use of the phrase “mission accomplished” had raised eyebrows. He tweeted an angry insistence that his use was not a mistake. It was smart! He would do it again! He resumed blasting at Comey from 7:42 onward, coming to rest only at 10:44 with a message of self-reassurance about the great job he was doing and how popular he was.


http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -documents
Quote:
Lawyers for President Trump wrote a federal judge on Sunday asking her to halt federal prosecutors from reviewing documents seized in Michael Cohen’s office and home, arguing that the Department of Justice cannot fairly evaluate the materials.


http://thehill.com/policy/finance/38332 ... ury-report
Quote:
President Trump on Monday criticized China for devaluing its currency days after the Treasury Department said Beijing was not manipulating the value of its money.

Trump said on Twitter that both China and Russia “are playing the Currency Devaluation game as the U.S. keeps raising interest rates."Not acceptable!" the president tweeted.


And Trump continues to direct the federal govt to follow his whims:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... al-service
Quote:
President Trump announced Thursday he is forming a task force to look at the viability and operations of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) on the heels of his tweets accusing Amazon of hurting the organization.


http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/ ... roof-booth
Quote:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) violated the law with its approval to pay for a secure soundproof booth in Administrator Scott Pruitt's personal office, a federal watchdog said on Monday.

A report by the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) found that Pruitt's $43,000 booth, referred to as the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), "violated" the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, which caps agency redecorations at $5,000 without prior approval.
Trump still seems to be defending this crook.




Edit to add:

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... troversial
Quote:
In a Monday report, the EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) concluded, based on documents provided to investigators by the agency, that Ryan Jackson [Pruitt's Chief of Staff] signed off on the five-figure raises [for 2 of Pruitt's favorite staffers, using a very shady mechanism], but indicated that Pruitt authorized them.

Pruitt had told Fox News the week prior that he knew nothing about the raises, despite Jackson adding "for Scott Pruitt" after his signature on the forms, copies of which the OIG attached to its report.

...Kevin Chmielewski, formerly Pruitt’s deputy chief of staff for operations, told congressional investigators last week that although Jackson signed off on the raises, Pruitt knew about the entire process.In fact, the documents reviewed by the OIG show that Jackson signed “Ryan Jackson for Scott Pruitt” in one of the placed authorizing the raises.


https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... presidency
Quote:
Trump Should Be Worried by Cohen Probe. Really Worried.
Federal prosecutors can dog him for the rest of his presidency, and he has no power to fire them.
Quote:
The upshot is that if it’s accurate, as it has been reported, that Trump is more worried about the Cohen investigation than the Mueller one, he’s not wrong.

The Southern District team can’t bring Trump to trial while he is president. But if it finds evidence of felonies involving Trump, the team could name him as an unindicted co-conspirator in charges against Cohen. That would tell the world that the president is a crook. It would put substantial pressure on Congress to impeach Trump. And, after Trump’s presidency ends, whether at the end of his term or before, a criminal prosecution could await. The prospect of a trial would loom over whatever time in the presidency he has left.

News from this afternoon's meeting involving Cohen's lawyer.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -n-y-court
Quote:
After an afternoon of pitched arguments over who should have the right to vet documents seized from President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, a federal judge in New York delayed a decision on whether to appoint an impartial “special master” to conduct the review.

U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood said that federal authorities who seized documents from the lawyer, Michael Cohen, would provide copies to Cohen’s team. A lawyer for Cohen said they could provide a list of proposed special masters by Tuesday. The government will also provide names.

The judge voiced confidence in federal prosecutors and stressed that she didn’t want to slow down the matter. “I have faith in the Southern District U.S. attorney’s office that their integrity is unimpeachable,” Wood said. She said her interest is in “getting this moving”speedily and efficiently.

...What’s at Stake
President Donald Trump is fighting an extraordinary legal battle in Manhattan on Monday, seeking to stop his own Justice Department from reviewing records seized from his longtime private lawyer, Michael Cohen.
The meeting included the revelation that Hannity is Cohen's other mystery client.

_________________

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


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 17 Apr , 2018 1:24 pm
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https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... -3/558167/
Quote:
From one perspective, Hannity’s entanglement with Cohen is not a great surprise. Hannity is not only politically allied with Trump, but is personally close to him and his family, and Cohen has been deeply enmeshed in Trump family and business matters for years.

Yet the ethical implications boggle the mind. Hannity has covered the raid on Cohen with vigor. Hannity said the raid was proof that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had “declared war” on Trump....Now, I told you and I’ve told anyone who will listen: Mueller’s team is corrupt, starting with him, and it has been from the beginning.” Hannity called the raid (which was conducted after a referral by Mueller, but executed by the federal prosecutors in Manhattan) an “unprecedented abuse of power” and evidence of a “two-tiered justice system.”

These views align with Trump’s, so it’s likely that Hannity would have espoused them anyway. We now know, however, that his coverage represents a huge conflict of interest. By concealing—not just by omission, but by commission, in requesting that his involvement be kept anonymous—his relationship with Cohen when he made these comments, Hannity misled his viewers and listeners, whether that relationship was with an attorney or simply with a friend.

Such behavior would not pass muster at any other major news organization

Update: http://thehill.com/homenews/media/38356 ... ump-lawyer
Quote:
Fox News on Tuesday issued a statement of support for prime-time host Sean Hannity amid backlash over his previously undisclosed ties to President Trump's personal lawyer...."While FOX News was unaware of Sean Hannity's informal relationship with Michael Cohen and was surprised by the announcement in court yesterday, we have reviewed the matter and spoken to Sean and he continues to have our full support," the network said.


One of Pence's hires didn't pass Trump's "loyalty to me" test and has been fired.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/a-top-pen ... him-2018-4
Quote:
President Donald Trump wasn't pleased when he found out last week that Vice President Mike Pence had hired a longtime Republican pollster and one-time Trump critic to be his national security adviser.

Jon Lerner, a top aide to US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley who has no national security experience, would have served an unusual dual role as an advisor to both Haley and Pence, who work closely together on foreign policy and national security issues.

But the president had issues with Lerner's history working for a political action group that backed Sen. Marco Rubio in the Republican presidential primaries and conservative anti-tax organization Club for Growth, which released a series of ads lambasting Trump during the election, the New York Times reported.

...Trump's disapproval forced Pence's team to reconsider and Lerner resigned Sunday evening.



https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... ey-rnc-fbi
Quote:
Lyin’ Comey, a new website from the Republican National Committee, complete with a splash page trying to sign you up for email spam from the RNC and the Trump campaign, is live this morning. It constitutes a fairly unprecedented high-profile presidential attack on a private citizen....

The occasion for the rollout is that former FBI Director James Comey is on the cusp of releasing a new book and is undertaking the associated media publicity campaign. Comey is thought to have unflattering things to say about the president, so the president’s team is now trying to discredit him. Interestingly, though, the Lyin’ Comey site does not really dedicate much attention (if any) to rebutting anything in particular Comey said about Trump.

Instead, its main focus is pointing out that between October 2016 and Comey’s firing in May 2017, Democrats had a lot of mean things to say about him.

...The RNC isn’t going to try to seriously convince anyone that Democrats’ complaints about his handling of Hillary Clinton’s emails is their beef with Comey, but they are hoping that they can persuade the press they care in hopes of muddying the waters — ideally generating some infighting on the left.


They probably have a decent chance of success. Hillary supporters are already outraged:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... e-at-comey
Quote:
After reading excerpts from Comey’s new book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” and watching his first interview since being fired, with ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday night, former aides on the Clinton campaign are collectively gnashing their teeth.

...While much of the coverage generated by Comey’s book has centered on his feud with Trump, Clinton allies are focused on his disclosures about the 2016 election.

They are particularly incensed by Comey’s acknowledgment that, when deciding how to handle the investigation into Clinton’s email server, he took into account polls showing she would win the White House....“It is entirely possible that, because I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president, my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the restarted investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in all polls,” Comey wrote.


...Yet Comey’s book did bring one damaging disclosure for the Clinton camp: It reveals that advisers to Clinton were wrong when they insisted in the summer of 2015 that the FBI had not opened a criminal investigation into Clinton’s email server, as was reported by The New York Times.
Oh goody, we get to hear yet more about how her loss was everyone else's fault. Just in time for midterm campaigning, when quite a lot of Democratic candidates seem to wish she'd just shut up and go away.



http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/38 ... ence-based
Quote:
In closed-door meetings at the annual United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, officials from the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Mission to the U.N. discussed abstinence-oriented sexual education and anti-abortion policies, officials present at the meetings told BuzzFeed News.

Bethany Kozma, a USAID adviser on women’s empowerment, reportedly said during a meeting that the U.S. was a “pro-life nation.” “When she said that there was sort of a record scratch and silence,” one U.N. official told BuzzFeed News on the condition of anonymity. “Everyone was like, ‘are you kidding me?’”

Trump officials reportedly asked for the removal of references to “modern contraception,” “emergency contraception” and “unsafe abortion” from a document on international gender equality,, according to BuzzFeed News.

In other meetings at the two-week March series, Trump administration officials pushed abstinence-focused policies and proposed teaching women “sexual refusal skills” as part of an international approach to sex education.
Descriptions of the US demands from UN officials include terms like "bonkers."



http://thehill.com/homenews/house/38358 ... -of-pardon
Quote:
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are pressing Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) for hearings on whether President Trump has abused his pardon power after Trump's controversial decision to pardon Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

In a letter to Goodlatte, over a dozen Democrats raised concerns that Trump's decision to pardon the former George W. Bush administration official is an attempt to show potential defendants in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe that Trump is willing to pardon them as well and reduce the prospect that they'll cooperate with Mueller.

...An investigation in 2007 found that Libby had leaked the identity of former covert CIA officer Valerie Plame in an act of retribution against her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for his criticism of the Bush administration in the run-up to the Iraq invasion

. ...“I don’t know Mr. Libby, but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly,” Trump said in a statement at the time. “Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life."

...The Democrats also suggested that Trump bypassed the typical Department of Justice vetting process for Libby's pardon request.

_________________

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


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 19 Apr , 2018 1:33 am
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http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch ... al-pardons
Quote:
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) on Wednesday asked state lawmakers to amend the law so that prosecutors can charge individuals who have benefitted from a presidential pardon.

New York’s existing law states that if an individual pleads guilty or is convicted of a federal crime and then is pardoned by the president, prosecutors cannot bring charges for violating state laws because of a double-jeopardy rule that stipulates a person cannot be tried for the same crime twice.

Schneiderman wrote to Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and leaders of the state legislature to argued that as a result of the current policy, a “strategically-timed pardon” could protect individuals who have violated New York state laws.

... We are disturbed by reports that @POTUS is considering pardons of individuals who may have committed serious federal crimes—acts that may also violate NY law.

We must ensure that if any president issues such pardons, we can use NY’s laws to bring such individuals to justice. pic.twitter.com/oPEkwTrB0S


http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3837 ... opposition
Quote:
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said his committee will take up legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller despite opposition from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

"They got together, so I feel an obligation to keep my word and move forward," Grassley said when asked if he would still give the special counsel legislation a vote. Grassley had previously urged supporters of two competing special counsel bills to strike an agreement and merge their proposals.

That legislation is on the agenda for a committee business meeting on Thursday, but an actual vote is expected to be delayed until next week.



Kobach is in the news agan. Things are not going well for him.
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch ... ation-case
Quote:
A federal judge held Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) in contempt on Wednesday for repeatedly skirting court orders related to a blocked state voter registration law.

In a court order, U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson tore into Kobach, an outspoken proponent of stricter voting laws, for failing to send postcards notifying thousands of voters of their registration.

Those voters had previously been blocked from registering under a Kansas state law Kobach had pushed for because they were not able to provide proof of citizenship during registration.

Robinson blocked that law during the 2016 election.



http://thehill.com/policy/finance/38375 ... n-guidance
Quote:
The Senate on Wednesday repealed a controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) decree on auto-loan financing in a vote that could set a precedent for Republicans to repeal a broad range of regulations.

Senators generally fell along party lines in the 51-47 vote to repeal 2013 guidance from the CFPB on "dealer markups" — the interest a dealer adds to a customer's third-party loan as extra compensation.

Assuming the House passes the measure, the CFPB auto-lending guidance will likely be the first informal regulation to be repealed by Congress through the Congressional Review Act.

While Congress has used the Congressional Review Act more than a dozen times since 2017 to repeal formal rules issued under former President Obama, it has never before used the law to repeal guidance. Republicans are now looking to do so, and could go after a range of regulatory actions that had been considered off-limits.

Efforts to repeal rules under the Congressional Review Act cannot be filibustered, giving Republicans a powerful tool to slash regulations with only a majority vote in each chamber. The act also bans agencies from issuing rules similar to those overturned under the law.


http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/38 ... erable-dem
Quote:
Republicans are declining to back Democratic measures that would crack down on suspicious opioid shipments — including legislation offered by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), one of the most vulnerable members up for reelection this year.

McCaskill said she has approached multiple Republicans about backing her bill, and all have refused.

...McCaskill’s bill would repeal a 2016 law that a Washington Post–“60 Minutes” investigation last fall found is impeding the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) ability to freeze suspicious opioid shipments, flooding pharmacies in small towns with pills and fueling the opioid crisis.

...In the House, Republicans have also stayed away from Democratic measures on the issue — which could suggest the issue goes beyond McCaskill. House Democrats have discussed a number of reasons for the GOP reticence, including whether drug companies are blocking action, or whether Republicans are seeking to protect the sponsor of the original legislation on the issue, Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.).

Efforts to address the 2016 law have been left out of an emerging opioid package in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Democratic aides say Republicans on the committee have told them a fix on the issue is unlikely to be included in the opioid package the panel is working on, and that there is not a pressing need for a legislative fix.


http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/38 ... -pollution
Quote:
The Trump administration has quietly reshaped enforcement of air pollution standards in recent months through a series of regulatory memos.

The memos are fulfilling the top wishes of industry, which has long called for changes to how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversees the nation’s factories, plants and other facilities. The EPA is now allowing certain facilities to be subject to less-stringent regulations and is letting companies use friendlier math in calculating their expected emissions.

_________________

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


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 19 Apr , 2018 3:24 pm
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Posts: 2048
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http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... cuffed-him
Quote:
An upstate New York farmer says that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided his home without a warrant and handcuffed him for interfering in an arrest of one of his farm hands.John Collins said he was outside on his dairy farm Wednesday morning when he heard shouts from inside his home, where he found his worker Marcial de Leon Aguilar pinned against the window by armed ICE agents, Syracuse.com reports.

Collins said he repeatedly asked the immigration law enforcement officials to show their paperwork or a warrant, but they showed him none and remained on the property despite Collins' demands that they leave. ...A spokesman for ICE told Syracuse.com that he is looking into the incident.

...While Aguilar has been working legally for Collins for months and paying taxes, his wife and children crossed the southern U.S. border illegally seeking asylum from Guatemala. But, Collins says she has been in frequent talks with ICE about her situation.

When Collins tried to capture a video of the raid on his phone, he says an ICE agent smashed it on the road and handcuffed him, warning him of interfering in a federal investigation.


http://thehill.com/homenews/house/38389 ... carry-bill
Quote:
A coalition of police chiefs across the country is urging lawmakers to reject legislation that would allow for concealed-carry gun reciprocity between states.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police in a letter to congressional leadership obtained by The Washington Post presses lawmakers not to approve legislation passed by the House in December. That bill would allow people to use their permits across state lines and boost the background check system for gun sales.

“These bills would override state permitting laws that limit who can carry a loaded hidden gun in each state and would force states to allow individuals to carry guns who are not qualified to do so under their own laws,” the letter reads.


http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... e-drilling
Quote:
The Trump administration is taking its first administrative step toward allowing oil and natural gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a notice Thursday that it is starting the “scoping” process for an environmental review to examine the impact of leasing drilling rights to companies in ANWR’s 1.6 million-acre Coastal Plain.

The BLM will take public comments for 60 days and hold four meetings in Alaska to inform the public how it will conduct the environmental review, it said in the notice, which is set to be published Friday in the Federal Register.

The notice comes just four months after Congress voted to allow drilling in the federally owned ANWR for the first time. Democrats had for decades successfully blocked efforts to open ANWR to rigs, but the GOP pushed the measure through as part of its Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

That law requires the BLM to hold at least two drilling rights lease sales in the next 10 years.

Joseph Balash, Interior’s assistant secretary for land and mineral management, said last month that the first lease sale could be as soon as next year, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... ing-report
Quote:
The Trump administration is looking into a Cold War imposed statute to prop up U.S. coal plants, Bloomberg reports. The administration is considering implementing the 68-year-old Defense Production Act, which was first passed by Congress in the midst of the Korean War as a way to nationalize an energy industry necessary in times of battle.

...Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) sent a letter Wednesday to the President urging him to utilize the policy in the name of homeland security.

...According to Bloomberg, White House aides are looking into how to best implement the policy, which gives the government a broad latitude to nationalize private industry in the name of security. This could provide help to the industries in the form of loans and loan guarantees or purchase commitments. It could also be aimed at specific regions or plants.

...If the statute is decided on, the administration does not have to work with Congress to implement the statute, it could leave lawmakers opposed to the idea largely in the lurch.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/cohen-woul ... 1524093151
Quote:
One of President Donald Trump’s longtime legal advisers said he warned the president in a phone call Friday that Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and close friend, would turn against the president and cooperate with federal prosecutors if faced with criminal charges.

Mr. Trump made the call seeking advice from Jay Goldberg, who represented Mr. Trump in the 1990s and early 2000s. Mr. Goldberg said he cautioned the president not to trust Mr. Cohen.
So if Trump is pure as the driven snow, why did he make this phone call to Goldberg and why would he be worried about Cohen's potential 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


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 20 Apr , 2018 1:21 pm
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http://thehill.com/policy/national-secu ... with-trump
Quote:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has handed over to Congress memos written by former FBI Director James Comey documenting his encounters with President Trump that provide a meticulously detailed, first-hand account of some of the most controversial moments in the Trump presidency.

....The three Republican chairmen who forced the release of the memos — Reps. Bob Goodlatte (Va.), Trey Gowdy (S.C.) and Devin Nunes (Calif.) — claimed Thursday that they provide clear evidence that Trump did not seek to obstruct justice in the Russia investigation.

The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, meanwhile, said they “provide strong corroborating evidence of everything [Comey] said about President Trump” and show a “blatant effort to deny justice.”
Read Comey's memos here:
http://thehill.com/policy/national-secu ... with-trump




http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... of-science
Quote:
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) political staffers have been working to internally replicate through agency action a bill that would restrict the kind of science that the EPA can use when writing regulations, internal emails show.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... n-over-oil
Quote:
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) office of enforcement will announce a new policy aimed specifically at helping polluters in the oil and gas industry, The Hill has learned.

The new policy, which has not been finalized, will focus on offering more flexibility to oil and gas companies that choose to self-audit their emissions and report any failures to meet EPA’s regulations, according to an EPA employee with knowledge of the plan.

EPA's head of the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA), Susan Bodine, has plans to announce the policy Friday at the EarthX Law and Policy symposium in Dallas.


http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... ling-false
Quote:
The Kushner Cos. received a federal subpoena on Thursday as investigators look into whether the real estate company repeatedly filed false paperwork that incorrectly claimed it served zero rent-regulated tenants.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Kushner Cos. received a subpoena from the prosecutors in the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office, who are demanding information in response to an article from The Associated Press claiming the company often filed paperwork claiming it had zero tenants in buildings where in fact hundreds of rent-regulated tenants lived.


http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/s ... -for-votes
Quote:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is facing renewed pressure from President Trump and some of his Senate colleagues to support Mike Pompeo for secretary of State as the administration hunts for votes.

...With Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) becoming the first Democrat to say she will vote for Pompeo on Thursday, Republicans likely won’t need Paul’s support to confirm him on the Senate floor.

But Paul opposition is poised to make Pompeo the first secretary of State nominee since the mid-1920s — before which committee business was largely conducted in secret — to be moved to the floor despite getting an unfavorable committee vote.

This is how Dear Leader thinks about the judicial system - decide cases the way I think you should or you're not a good judge:
http://thehill.com/regulation/court-bat ... ral-report
Quote:
President Trump has reportedly voice complaints in recent days about his Supreme Court pick, Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Administration officials familiar with the situation told The Washington Post that Trump was upset that Gorsuch had been too liberal in some recent cases, and that he feared the justice was not a reliable conservative.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... dian-dream
Quote:
Engineers Are Leaving Trump’s America for the Canadian Dream
The long wait for green cards was bad enough. Antagonism toward immigrants is pushing skilled foreigners across the border.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... riff-trade
Quote:
Ships laden with more than 1.2m tonnes of US sorghum bound for China may have no where to go amid the ongoing trade tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Twenty ships carrying more than $216m worth of sorghum were at sea on Friday, according to Reuters, but least five of them had changed course within hours of China’s announcement this week that it would place stiff tariffs on the grain.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... c-optimism
Quote:
President Donald Trump’s trade policies are taking some air out of the high-flying economic optimism that had prevailed among American companies and consumers since his 2016 election.

Confidence gauges spanning small businesses, factories and the public at large are coming off the boil as U.S. tariffs on imported metals -- along with threats and counterthreats over Chinese goods -- roil the stock market and cast a cloud over what was otherwise a bright economic outlook. The latest indications arrived Thursday in the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s regional manufacturing survey and the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index.


Bloomberg editorial calls out McConnell for claiming he won't let Congress vote on the bill to protect Mueller:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... estigation
Quote:
McConnell and Ryan, whose respective bodies have exercised almost no oversight of an executive branch that careens from one scandal to the next, publicly insist that there is no reason to shield Mueller's investigation into relations between President Donald Trump's allies and foreign operatives.

This is nonsense. After numerous indictments and guilty pleas already obtained by Mueller, and a related investigation that led to a raid last week by federal agents on the office, home and hotel room of Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, the president continues to attack the Mueller investigation, calling it "fake and corrupt" and a "total witch hunt."

_________________

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


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 20 Apr , 2018 2:30 pm
A green apple painted red
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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 20 Apr , 2018 5:55 pm
You are hearing me talk
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The proper headline was "What did Trump and Putin say about hookers and when did they say it?"


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 24 Apr , 2018 4:30 pm
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http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... -pollution
Quote:
A pair of Democratic lawmakers is questioning Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt over a memo that gave him new authority to make certain determinations over water pollution standards.

The March memo took away the authority of regional EPA officials to make some calls as to whether a particular body of water can be federally controlled under the Clean Water Act, and gave that authority to Pruitt.

...They accused him of "sidelining" local expertise and said that Pruitt actions “appear nothing more than a power grab to consolidate absolute authority in your personal offices, with no assurance that you will follow the rule of law, science, or the precedents of the agency in exercising your statutory responsibility under the Clean Water Act to ‘restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.’”

The lawmakers, each the top Democrat on the Senate and House committees that oversee the EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Water Act, asked Pruitt for a wide range of documents and explanations related to the memo.



http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3845 ... mp-va-pick
Quote:
The Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee has delayed the confirmation hearing for President Trump’s pick to run the Department of Veterans Affairs after committee leaders said they needed to look into "serious allegations" about nominee Ronny Jackson.

While the White House issued a statement Tuesday sticking by Jackson, the delay and an accompanying statement from the committee leaders underlined the problems Trump's pick may have in moving forward.

...While the statement did not offer details on the allegations faced by Jackson, CBS News reported that staffers are looking into chargers of a "hostile work environment," including "excessive drinking on the job [and] improperly dispensing meds.”

[Chairman Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Sen. John Tester (Mont.), the panel's ranking Democrat] sent a joint letter to the White House on Tuesday requesting more information about Jackson's service in the White House Medical Unit and as physician to the president.

Tester told NBC that he believed every member of the committee was standing by the decision to postpone the matter.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ms/558779/
Quote:
The Negligent Nomination of Ronny Jackson: The president’s pick to be secretary of veterans affairs stands accused of misconduct, but with a proper vetting process he would never have been in this position anyway.
Quote:
One problem is that, as the Post reported in March, the Presidential Personnel Office, which looks into nominees’ pasts, isn’t fully staffed, and those who are working there are young, inexperienced, and have spotty resumes of their own.

The Jackson nomination so far shows the president failing doubly to learn his lesson from the previous problems with nominees: He hasn’t fixed the vetting office, and at the same time bypassed it in choosing Jackson.
It also contains this:
Quote:
Jackson’s surprise stall-out is not the only example of a vetting failure—it’s not even the only one this week. On Monday, Secretary of State-designee Mike Pompeo barely managed to scrape through through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with an endorsement, and he faces a tight vote in the broader Senate. Senators said Pompeo could not answer basic questions about the administration’s foreign policy



http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/ ... panel-vote
Quote:
A Senate panel on Monday voted to give CIA Director Mike Pompeo a favorable recommendation that puts him on course to be confirmed as secretary of State, following a surprise last-minute vote switch by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

http://thehill.com/policy/national-secu ... tion-fight
Quote:
The Senate’s debate over Gina Haspel’s confirmation as CIA director is poised to be a bitter litigation of one of the most controversial episodes in recent U.S. history.

Haspel, the CIA’s deputy director, is indelibly tied to the agency’s use of harsh interrogation techniques after the Sept. 11 attacks. But she is also a 33-year intelligence veteran who is seen even by some critics of President Trump as an experienced and apolitical hand.

...even if Haspel clears the committee, her confirmation fight is likely to be tumultuous. Human rights advocates and some former military and intelligence officials are urging the Senate to vote down Haspel over her role in the agency’s detention and interrogation programs.

Hinting at the challenge ahead, the CIA is engaged in an extraordinarily public campaign to burnish Haspel’s image and correct what it says is a swath of inaccurate reporting about a career intelligence officer who, up until a year ago, was virtually anonymous.

...Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), both members of the Intelligence Committee, have complained that the CIA is selectively declassifying only positive information about Haspel.

The CIA on Friday did declassify a 2011 memo in which former Deputy Director Michael Morell found that Haspel “acted appropriately” when she drafted an order to destroy videotapes of harsh interrogations at a “black site” prison in Thailand that she briefly ran.

...Wyden blasted the memo as “highly incomplete” but “[confirming] some extremely troubling facts about Deputy Director Haspel.” He has hinted repeatedly that there is much about Haspel’s record that remains unknown. As a member of the intelligence panel, Wyden has access to classified information that the rest of his colleagues do not.“My concerns about Ms. Haspel are far broader than this episode or anything else that has appeared in the press,” Wyden said in a statement Friday.


Not that this comes as any surprise.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/38447 ... he-wealthy
Quote:
Much of the tax benefit from the new tax law's deduction for pass-through businesses will go to wealthy individuals, according to a Joint Committee on Taxation report released Monday.

About 44 percent of the tax benefit from the deduction will go to those with an income of $1 million or more in 2018, and 52.4 percent of the benefit will go to those with income in that range in 2024, the congressional tax scorekeeper estimated.

I can understand being diplomatic about someone you are trying to negotiate with, but this is disgusting:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -honorable
Quote:
“He really has been very open and, I think, very honorable from everything we're seeing," Trump said of Kim Jong Un during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House.

The U.S. has blamed North Korea for ordering the execution of Kim's brother with a banned nerve agent. The reclusive government has faced persistent criticism from human-rights groups that say it starves its own citizens.


http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3845 ... ate-dinner
Quote:
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) on Tuesday said he thinks President Trump should have invited Democrats and the media to the state dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron.

“I think it would have sent a better message, just my opinion, if we included a cross-section of Congress. You can’t include everybody, but that’s Democrats, Independents and Republicans,” Kennedy said on CNN’s “New Day.”
Previous presidents, of course, invited both Democrats and Republicans to state dinners.





From The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... al/558800/
Quote:
Europe's Last-Ditch Effort to Save the Iran Deal

And what happens if it fails
Quote:
There is every reason to fear that Macron won’t prevail on the next important item on the agenda: persuading the president to remain in the Iran nuclear deal.

It’s hardly for lack of trying. For months now, France, along with Germany and the United Kingdom (the other European signatories of the accord), has been trying to keep America in the deal. That seemed a herculean task before the latest makeover in the president’s foreign policy team. With the ascendance of John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, it might well have become an impossible one.The odds of Trump exiting the Iran deal, more formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), have gotten higher—and it’s hard to see how this ends well for the security of the United States, the Middle East, or the world.



Edit:

And Pruitt tosses out a bunch of scientific research:
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/ ... icy-501612
Quote:
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt announced Tuesday he would seek to bar the agency from relying on studies that don't publicly disclose all their data, a major policy change that has long been sought by conservatives that will sharply reduce the research the agency can rely on when crafting new regulations.

...The proposal, based on legislation pushed by Smith, is intensely controversial, and scientists and public health groups say it will prevent federal regulators from enacting health and safety protections. Nearly 1,000 scientists, including former EPA career staffers, signed a letter opposing the policy sent by the Union of Concerned Scientists to Pruitt on Monday.

...Pruitt has been discussing the new scientific policy publicly for weeks, but it only went to the White House for interagency review last week. Such swift review is very rare for the Office of Management and Budget, which often takes months to vet a new policy. At least one group, the Environmental Defense Fund, has requested a meeting with OMB officials to discuss the rule, but OMB's website shows that no meetings have been scheduled with interested groups.
Pruitt has signed it:
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... rom-agency
Quote:
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt signed a rule proposal Tuesday aimed at increasing "transparency" in science all while limiting reporter, environmentalist and scientist access to the event.

...Speaking in front of a number of well-known climate change skeptics including the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Myron Ebell, Pruitt announced that the new rule would require science to "be transparent, reproducible and able to be analyzed by those in the marketplace." Reporters were not invited to attend the event, and details surrounding the announcement and rule proposal were kept secret until 30 minutes before the EPA's Twitter account announced it would be live-streamed
This is one of those things that can be spun to sound good, but any scientist realizes it's very bad news and simply an effort to throw out science Pruitt doesn't like.

_________________

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


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 25 Apr , 2018 1:32 pm
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... der-him-to
Quote:
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to continue accepting Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) applications, dealing a major blow to the administration as it attempts to wind down the program.

U.S. District Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, became the third federal judge to reject President Trump’s explanation for ending the program, ruling that the decision by the Justice Department that the program was unlawful was “virtually unexplained.”
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/38 ... od-in-teen
Quote:
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from cutting short grants awarded to Planned Parenthood through a federal teen pregnancy prevention program.

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Rice issued a permanent injunction Tuesday evening preventing the administration from ending the grants two years earlier than originally planned, saying that doing so would cause public harm

...A federal judge also ruled in favor of other grantees last week.
I predict a twitter attack on the judicial system by Trump.



This would probably be a non-story except for Trump's repeated lies that he didn't spend the night in Moscow:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... cow-nights
Quote:
President Donald Trump twice gave James Comey an alibi for why a salacious report about the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow couldn’t be true: He never even spent the night in Russia during that trip, Trump told the former FBI director, according to Comey’s memos about the conversations.

Yet the broad timeline of Trump’s stay, stretching from Friday, Nov. 8, 2013, through the following Sunday morning, has been widely reported. And it’s substantiated by social media posts that show he slept in Moscow the night before the Miss Universe contest.

Now, flight records obtained by Bloomberg provide fresh details. Combined with existing accounts and Trump’s own social-media posts, they capture two days that, nearly five years later, loom large in the controversy engulfing the White House and at the heart of the Comey memos, which the Justice Department turned over last week to Congress.

Neither the White House nor Trump Organization immediately responded to requests for comment.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... l-jgf04o23
Quote:
French President Emmanuel Macron is discovering the limits of cooperation with Donald Trump on foreign policy, as his last-ditch appeal to salvage the Iran nuclear deal was met with intransigence by the U.S. president.

http://thehill.com/homenews/the-memo/38 ... hite-house
Quote:
The America Firsters are on the rise. That’s the lesson some people in President Trump’s world are drawing from recent personnel moves. In this telling, the populists and nationalists who powered Trump’s election are regaining a foothold as more establishment-friendly figures are marginalized.

But even as those developments please some of Trump’s most enthusiastic backers, they unnerve critics who fear what the president might do in the absence of more measured advice.
Quote:
High-profile names have exited in recent months, including former national security adviser H.R. McMaster and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

And now, two less-famous names are causing a major stir among those within Trump’s orbit. It emerged late last week that McMaster’s replacement, John Bolton, would bring in Mira Ricardel as his deputy. Separately, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who was ousted from the National Security Council staff by McMaster in August, has returned to the administration, this time at the Department of Justice.

Next on the target list: immigrants from Nepal.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... s-for-9000
Quote:
The Trump administration is readying the cancellation of Temporary Residency Permits (TPS) for roughly 9,000 Nepalese immigrants, according to The Washington Post. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen will give the immigrants until June 24, 2019, to leave the U.S., according to documents obtained by The Post. A DHS spokesperson told The Hill that the department will make an announcement on the matter in the coming days.

TPS allows foreigners to stay in the U.S. so they do not have to return to countries rocked by crises such as war and natural disaster. Nepalese immigrants were given the status in 2011 after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked the country, leaving almost 9,000 people dead.
Immigration hardliners within the administration have long promoted getting rid of TPS protections for immigrants.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... it-s-a-con
Quote:
How Long Can Trump's Long Con Last?
Trump has exaggerated his wealth for years. In office, he's trying a similar scam.

_________________

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


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 25 Apr , 2018 3:02 pm
A green apple painted red
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https://twitter.com/rachelnpr/status/989107378833502208
Quote:
WH deputy spox @JHoganGidley won't say whether POTUS still wants Scott Pruitt on the job. Tells us Pruitt "still has a lot of questions to answer."
To quote Barbosa, that means no.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 26 Apr , 2018 12:39 am
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Well, Pruitt has got his talking points all prepared - apparently, everything he did was someone else's fault.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... ame-report
Quote:
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt on Thursday will try and shift the blame to others during his two House hearings if questioned about the number of scandals linked to him, according to internal talking points obtained Wednesday by The New York Times.


And he's not the only one with questions to answer:
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/38 ... aff-member
Quote:
A new memo from the top Democrat on the Veterans Affairs Committee contains a slew of new allegations against President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, including that he passed out controlled substances to anyone who asked.

...The two-page report from the staff of Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) includes allegations that arose from conversations committee staff had with 23 colleagues and former colleagues of Rear Admiral Jackson, “most of whom are still in uniform.”

It provides more details on the three categories of accusations leveled against Jackson: improper prescribing practices, creating a hostile work environment and drunkenness on the job.

...Jackson's colleagues described him as “the most unethical person I have ever worked with.” They said he would have “screaming tantrums” and “screaming fits," and was someone who would “lose his mind over small things." The day-to-day environment in his office was like "walking on eggshells," current and former colleagues told committee staff


And this is just plain surreal. Or delusional.
http://thehill.com/regulation/administr ... ase-report
Quote:
President Trump offered to personally review documents seized in an FBI raid of the office and home of his personal attorney, according to a court document filed Wednesday.

ABC News reported that Trump’s attorneys told Judge Kimba Wood that the president would be willing to review, as needed, documents taken from the home, office and hotel room of Michael Cohen earlier this month, and check them for privileged information.

_________________

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


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 26 Apr , 2018 1:20 pm
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http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... ott-pruitt
Quote:
Scott Pruitt is embroiled in numerous controversies, but the biggest threat to his tenure as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could be a government official little known outside of Washington.

Arthur Elkins, the EPA’s inspector general, is investigating Pruitt on numerous fronts. As an independent, congressionally authorized investigator, Elkins has unique access to the agency and its internal workings — and a responsibility to go public with whatever he finds.

Elkins has already agreed to look into several matters involving Pruitt, including his travel costs, his around-the-clock security detail, his purchase of a $43,000 privacy booth and his role in the substantial pay raises that were given to top aides.

...People who have worked with Elkins say he is the model for an inspector general, fair and thorough and able to balance being independent of the EPA while working within it.
So no matter what happens today in Congress, Pruitt is not out of the woods even if Trump continues to support him.




Edit. And here's some of Pruitt's testimony:
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... -was-legal
Quote:
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt on Thursday blamed the agency’s career, non-political lawyers for the controversy over his $43,000 soundproof privacy booth, saying that the attorneys believed it was legal.

...Pruitt later in the hearing went a step further, saying he didn't even approve the privacy booth expenditure. “Career individuals at the agency took that process through and signed off on it all the way through,” Pruitt told Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Calif.). “I was not involved in the approval of the $43,000, and if I’d known about it, congressman, I would have refused it.”


http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... r-staffers
Quote:
Under intense questioning on Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt did not deny that he knew about controversial raises given to two of his top aides despite the White House previously rejecting the proposed pay increases.

“I was not aware of the amount, nor was I aware of the bypassing or the [White House Office of Presidential Personnel] process not being respected,” Pruitt told Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) during a House committee hearing.
So much for personal responsibility. What an ass.



Speaking of the EPA, I think I missed this earlier:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/17/us/p ... oring.html
Quote:
One Environmental Protection Agency employee spoke up at a private lunch held near the agency headquarters, saying she feared the nation might be headed toward an “environmental catastrophe.” Another staff member, from Seattle, sent a letter to Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator, raising similar concerns about the direction of the agency. A third, from Philadelphia, went to a rally where he protested against agency budget cuts.

Three different agency employees, in different jobs, from three different cities, but each encountered a similar outcome: Federal records show that within a matter of days, requests were submitted for copies of emails written by them that mentioned either Mr. Pruitt or President Trump, or any communication with Democrats in Congress that might have been critical of the agency.

The requests came from a Virginia-based lawyer working with America Rising, a Republican campaign research group that specializes in helping party candidates and conservative groups find damaging information on political rivals, and which, in this case, was looking for information that could undermine employees who had criticized the E.P.A.

Now a company affiliated with America Rising, named Definers Public Affairs, has been hired by the E.P.A. to provide “media monitoring,” in a move the agency said was intended to keep better track of newspaper and video stories about E.P.A. operations nationwide.

So this was brave. (warning, this one is a video)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/oscars ... vp-AAwli9A
Quote:
Employees at the Environmental Protection Agency took a unique lunch break on April 25th. Instead of eating a meal, some of the agency's employees went outside for a rally protesting their boss, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt.


Apparently, Trump had a bizarre interview today with Fox News. It's making news on a lot of news sites and at many magazines, too.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/n ... ew-w519554
Quote:
President Trump called into Fox & Friends early Thursday morning for a freewheeling, truculent interview that touched on the Stormy Daniels case, former FBI director James Comey, alleged corruption in the Justice Department and the possibility of collusion with Russia (among other topics).

The reason for the president's phone call was benign, in theory – he suggested he wanted to do a Fox & Friends interview because it was his wife's birthday. When the show's hosts politely asked the president what he got his wife, Melania, he responded, "I didn't get her so much. I got her a beautiful card."

Maybe that's because he had other things on his mind: Trump used his time on Fox & Friends to hit back at several of his perceived adversaries. But as he did so, he also appeared to undercut himself by contradicting his own previous statements.


https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04 ... -interview
Quote:
The conversation went downhill from there, slowly devolving into ever-longer bouts of furious ranting, as the president was asked about the scandal surrounding his allegedly prescription-happy personal doctor, Ronny Jackson (an “unblemished record,” he said), conservative YouTube celebrities Diamond and Silk (“beautiful women”), and James Comey (“a leaker and a liar”). He praised Kanye West, lamented that Shania Twain had backed away from defending him, congratulated the Republican Party on doing “the thing” in the Civil War, and complained about his treatment on CNN (“I don’t watch them at all,” Trump insisted).

Doocy, Kilmeade, and Earhardt endured the deluge heroically, fidgeting slightly at times, and offering small laughs as they encouraged the president and tried to keep him on track. The interview went off the rails, however, when the Fox hosts asked Trump about the Russia investigation dogging his presidency, and whether he would agree to interview with Mueller

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-on ... cap-2018-4
Quote:
Trump just had a wild 'Fox & Friends' interview reminiscent of the early days of the 2016 campaign — here are the highlights
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-th ... ent-2018-4
Quote:
President Donald Trump appeared to threaten the independence of the Department of Justice during a rare Thursday morning interview on "Fox and Friends," telling the conservative hosts that "at some point" he will intervene with the law enforcement agency.
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-st ... ier-2018-4
Quote:
President Donald Trump called in to "Fox & Friends" on Thursday morning in what turned into a lengthy rant in which Trump alluded to one of the most salacious allegations in the so-called Steele dossier.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/polit ... 80426.html
Quote:
In a meandering interview on Fox & Friends Thursday morning that turned at times into an angry phone rant, President Trump admitted that Michael Cohen represented him in the Stormy Daniels case and confirmed he stayed overnight in a Moscow hotel, contradicting a claim he made to then-FBI Director James Comey.

...Fox & Friends has often been a safe landing spot for Trump, who has repeatedly referred to it as his favorite news program. But Thursday, the hosts were surprisingly tough, interjecting often and asking follow-up questions, such as when the president complained about the Justice Department not doing its job.

_________________

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


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