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You've been Trumped!

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 05 Apr , 2019 2:35 pm
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Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/ap ... prosecutor
Quote:
The US has revoked the visa of the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor in response to her intention to investigate potential war crimes by US soldiers in Afghanistan.

A statement from the office of Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian national, said she would continue to pursue her duties for the court, in The Hague, “without fear or favour”.


https://thehill.com/regulation/court-ba ... tive-order
Quote:
A group of three states filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging President Trump’s 2017 executive order requiring federal agencies to repeal at least two standing regulations for each new regulation added.

...Thursday’s complaint alleges that the order exceeds Trump’s constitutional authority, violates the separation of powers doctrine in the Constitution and goes against the president’s duty to take due care in executing laws.

It also claims that several federal agencies, including the OMB, EPA and Energy Department, “have acted in excess of their statutory jurisdiction” in comply with the order. “As a result, numerous federal regulations addressing matters of public health, safety, welfare, and the environment have been and will continue to be revised, delayed, withdrawn, or repealed by agencies, including the Agency Defendants, to comply with the Order’s arbitrary mandates, and new rules will be delayed or not proposed at all,” the complaint reads.


https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/04/artic ... ?_=3959615
Quote:
Why US-China trade deal is coming, in two charts

The tariff battle has left the US bloodied more so than China, a fact that cannot be lost on Trump
Quote:
China’s stock market performance continues without taking a breath, and the next round of trade news should keep the momentum going.

There’s no doubt that President Trump is worried about US economic growth. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have sent my friend and former Bear Stearns colleague, Larry Kudlow, to tell CNBC that the Federal Reserve should drop the short-term lending rate by 50 basis points.

And the president is aware that the trade war with China is hurting US output, especially capital investment, which remains low despite the biggest corporate tax cut in US history. I presume he knows that, because everyone knows it. ...Other factors are slowing the US economy, but trade war is one of the big ones...


EDIT:

Trump's other brilliant choice for the Federal Reserve (besides that idiot and sycophant Moore):
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 56256.html
Quote:
Donald Trump plans to nominate a former Fox News commentator and Tea Party activist for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board, where he will help set interest rates for the world's biggest economy.

Herman Cain, a 73-year-old former pizza chain executive who was described by Mr Trump as a "friend of mine", has little direct experience with monetary policy, but has previously expressed a similar outlook to the president's negative view of the Fed's interest rate hikes.

"I have recommended him highly for the Fed," Mr Trump said in a press conference on Thursday. "I've told my folks that's the man."
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-a ... ard-2019-4
Quote:
Cain was the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Omaha branch from 1989 to 1991 and the chairman of the entire Kansas City Fed in 1995 and 1996. Directors of the Fed's 12 branches are typically businesspeople from the district rather than economists steeped in monetary policy.

Beyond his Fed role, Cain was the CEO of Godfather's Pizza and the National Restaurant Association.

... Cain would also be the second board nomination in the past month: Trump tapped the conservative economist Stephen Moore for a seat on March 22. While Moore's nomination is moving ahead, there have been numerous questions about the economist's repeated attacks on the Fed, his personal life, his track record as a forecaster, and his basic knowledge of monetary policy.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/new ... 1028089715
Quote:
President Donald Trump blamed the Federal Reserve for slowing growth Friday, saying it should slash interest rates and start injecting money into the economy... He also pushed the Fed to return to a bond-buying process known as quantitative easing, which was launched following the Great Recession.

Trump has repeatedly lashed out at the Fed about higher interest rates, arguing that they hurt growth. In December, when the stock market was down, he spoke privately about the possibility of firing Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.

The economy is expected to slow because of the fading effects from stimulus measures, such as the $1.5 trillion tax cuts passed last year, and ongoing trade tensions.

...Past presidents have generally tried to avoid commenting on Fed policy out of respect for its independence from political influence. But Trump and his administration have continued to pressure the central bank, even as it steps back from hikes.
It's pretty obvious that, by nominating Moore and Cain, Trump hopes to bring the Fed under his personal control.




https://www.businessinsider.com/cohen-s ... ump-2019-4
Quote:
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, says he has uncovered millions of files of new evidence that would be of interest to lawmakers investigating the president.

In a statement Thursday night, Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis said his client's "recent public and closed-door testimony to congressional committees has triggered additional areas for investigation by law enforcement authorities and the Congress." "In fact," Davis continued, "Mr. Cohen has recently obtained a hard drive with 14 million files from his computers and phones over the past 10 years, which we believe has significant value to the various congressional oversight and investigation committees."


https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-e ... age-2019-4
Quote:
President Donald Trump tweeted out an edited video of former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday addressing the concerns of women who have come forward alleging he inappropriately touched and kissed them.

The doctored video appears to have been originally posted by the conservative account @CarpeDonktum both on Twitter and on the pro-Trump subreddit forum r/The_Donald also by @CarpeDonktum. The subreddit, which has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, is a notorious venue for racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobia content.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 57316.html
Quote:
When Donald Trump lands in California to view what is being touted as the “first section” of his border wall to be completed, he may be a bit let down if he gets much of a history lesson. That’s because the barrier near the city of Calexico he is visiting is not new at all, even if a plaque there says it is. In fact, the recently completed renovations that have inspired the president’s visit were not thought up during this administration, either — the plans were made back during Barack Obama’s presidency.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 56696.html
Quote:
In a series of tweets, the president took a swipe at The Washington Post, and said that he would penalize Mexico in spite of the trade deal with Mexico and Canada — the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) — that he has made a signature foreign policy goal in the western hemisphere.

..."The Crazed and Dishonest Washington Post again purposely got it wrong. Mexico, for the first time in decades, is meaningfully apprehending illegals at THEIR Southern Border, before the long march up to the U.S. This is great and the way it should be. The big flow will stop," Mr Trump wrote.

He continued: "However, if for any reason Mexico stops apprehending and bringing the illegals back to where they came from, the U.S. will be forced to Tariff at 25% all cars made in Mexico and shipped over the Border to us. If that doesn’t work, which it will, I will close the Border."

"This will supersede USMCA. Likewise I am looking at an economic penalty for the 500 Billion Dollars in illegal DRUGS that are shipped and smuggled through Mexico and across our Southern Border. Over 100,00 Americans die each year, sooo many families destroyed!"
What an idiot. Maybe other governments should now assess penalties on the US government for any Americans who commit crimes in their countries?

_________________

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 08 Apr , 2019 1:45 pm
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Posts: 2048
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https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... s-congress
Quote:
Congressional anger is growing over President Trump’s efforts to secure a nuclear energy deal with Saudi Arabia.

Lawmakers first became wary of the plans when the Saudis refused to accept limits preventing them from developing a nuclear weapon. But that skepticism quickly turned to fury when it was revealed that the Trump administration gave approval for companies to share certain nuclear energy technology with the kingdom without a broader nuclear deal in place.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... mar-a-lago
Quote:
A former CIA officer on Monday said that President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida is a “gaping hole” for foreign intelligence agents to target.

Former CIA officer Lisa Ruth’s comments on CBS News comes just days after a woman from China was arrested for allegedly entering Mar-a-Lago with two Chinese passports, four cellphones and a thumb drive reportedly containing malicious software.
I guess they wanted more secrets than they can get from Trump talking on his unsecured cell phones.






https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... nary-guard
Quote:
The Trump administration is planning to step up pressure on Iran by labeling their Revolutionary Guard Corps a "foreign terrorist organization," the Associated Press reported Monday.

...If the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is designated a terrorist organization they would face additional sanctions... That could complicate U.S. activities in Iraq and Lebanon where several militias and parties have ties to the IRGC, which could lead communication with U.S. troops to be barred.

...More than 200 Iranian lawmakers reportedly signed onto a statement Sunday calling that called plan “inappropriate and idiotic.” “We will answer any action taken against this force with a reciprocal action...
That moron did it: https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4378 ... rror-group
Quote:
Netanyahu thanked Trump for "responding to another important request of mine," adding it "serves the interests of our countries and countries of the region."
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-se ... -will-have
Quote:
DOD has opposed this idea for a long time. When it was considered in 2007, the representative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told his civilian counterparts, “The United States has always carefully avoided declaring military officers engaged in activities sanctioned by their governments as terrorists to avoid the same being done to us.” It could be applied to American special forces officers, who frequently operate clandestinely and have provided military assistance and training to insurgents.


People have been speculating whether Mulvaney would do his duty or play a partisan and protect Trump. Now we know.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... ax-returns
Quote:
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday that Democrats will "never" see President Trump's tax returns.

...Last week, House Democrats formally requested Trump's tax returns, with Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) asking IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig to turn over six years of Trump's personal and business tax returns.

...Neal made the request under a provision of the federal tax code that states the Treasury secretary "shall furnish" tax returns upon request from the chairmen of Congress’s tax committees, provided that the documents associated with a particular taxpayer are viewed in a closed session.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... ury-report
Quote:
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin will soon lose two top aides ...Eli Miller, Treasury Department chief of staff and a former Trump campaign official, will leave the agency next week, according to a staffwide email obtained by The Hill....Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Affairs Tony Sayegh also intends to leave the Treasury Department by the end of May and is interviewing candidates for his replacement, according to Politico.

Fox News commentator Monica Crowley is reportedly in the mix to replace Sayegh. She was tapped before Trump’s inauguration to serve on the National Security Council, but withdrew her nomination after reports surfaced about instances of plagiarism.



https://thehill.com/latino/437724-justi ... additional
Quote:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly seeking up to two years to identify thousands of migrant children who were separated from their parents at the southern border before a judge ended the practice.

The Trump administration detailed the proposed timeline in a court filing on Friday, according to The Associated Press, saying that it will take longer than anticipated to review an estimated 47,000 cases of unaccompanied children taken into U.S. custody between July 1, 2017, and June 25, 2018, and to determine which children were separated from their parents.

https://thehill.com/opinion/internation ... causes-and
Quote:
President Donald Trump insists the increasing flow migrants from Central America must stop, but he and his administration’s pronouncements, policies, and actions are only making a bad situation worse, now and in the future.

Trump’s announcement that he will cut all U.S. assistance to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, the sources of most of the migrant flow, is perhaps the most obvious example that he neither understands the problem nor the tools the U.S. has to deal with it.

Central American migrants are a symptom of chronic problems in their region...

U.S. assistance prods local governments to do more in areas the U.S. thinks are important. Little or no U.S. aid goes directly to these governments, but instead supports the work of largely American non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private contractors. Shutting off U.S. assistance to Central America will almost certainly produce more migrants; it certainly will not stop the flow.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... temala-and
Quote:
President Trump said he does not need to hold a summit with the leaders of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras as he continues his calls for the countries to do more to prevent migrants from traveling to the U.S.

Trump has ...repeatedly threatened to shutter the border with Mexico... and last week halted foreign assistance to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

"No, no, I don't need a summit. I think we've done very well without the summit. They understand we stopped. We're saving $550 million. And I respectfully told — I thank him very much because for the last four days it's been great...



https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4377 ... with-facts
Quote:
A former News Corp executive said Sunday that he left his job because of Fox News’s “tone” and “relationship with facts.”

...“I’m a big believer in the marketplace of ideas, right?” Azam said. “And I was fine working with and for people who had very different values and opinions than I did, but I noticed a significant shift in the ferociousness and, frankly, in the relationship with facts.".

...“It became very profitable to kind of fall in line with some of the anti-immigrant, anti-refugee, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim rhetoric...

https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... o-lead-ice
Quote:
President Trump on Thursday withdrew his nominee to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The White House sent paperwork to Congress withdrawing Ron Vitiello, the agency's current acting director, as Trump's nominee to permanently lead the agency. "We’re going in a little different direction," President Trump said Friday about the decision. "Ron’s a good man, but we’re going in a tougher direction."

https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... en-resigns
Quote:
President Trump announced Sunday that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen will leave her post, ending a rocky run as the top official in charge of implementing the president’s hard-line immigration policies.

The decision, which Trump announced on Twitter...
Edit: Nielsen is apparently out because Trump wants to reinstate family separations. It seems she reminded him that federal court orders would not allow his policy and also that he signed the executive order rescinding the policy. It seems Dear Leader doesn't like that sort of truth.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white- ... cy-n992021

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-c ... ts-1388529
Quote:
In a report following on the heels of Nielsen's resignation, The New York Times detailed how Trump would call Nielsen at home early in the morning to demand that she "take action to stop migrants from entering the country."

The news outlet reported that the president would even go so far as to pressure Nielsen to take measures that were illegal to stop asylum seekers from coming to the U.S. border, including "blocking all migrants from seeking asylum."

"She repeatedly noted the limitations imposed on her department by federal laws, court settlements and international obligations," the newspaper reported. Rather than placating the president, however, Nielsen's attempts at explaining why she could not simply shut down the asylum process would only further stoke the flames of the U.S. leader's fury, The Times reported.



https://thehill.com/homenews/437833-lab ... -questions
Quote:
Associate Deputy Labor Secretary Michael Avakian has resigned less than a month after a brief suspension following an ethics probe, according to Bloomberg Law...His departure also follows a request by House Democrats last month for information about his work for a steel company in a lawsuit against a workers union. He reportedly continued to work for the company three months after joining the Labor Department last year.



https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... g-congress
Quote:
Scientists and officials around the US have told the Guardian that the Trump administration has withdrawn funding for a large, successful conservation program – in direct contradiction of instructions from Congress.

Unique in scale and ambition, the program comprises 22 research centers that tackle big-picture issues affecting huge swaths of the US, such as climate change, flooding and species extinction. They are known as Landscape Conservation Cooperatives – or were, because 16 of them are now on indefinite hiatus or have dissolved.

“I just haven’t seen anything like this in my almost 30 years of working with the federal government,” said a scientist at the Fish and Wildlife Service who worked for one of the LCCs and wished to remain anonymous, because federal employees were instructed not to speak with the Guardian for this story. “There is this lack of accountability.”...


EDIT:

Trump has gone completely off the rails and is conducting a purge, possibly at the behest of Stephen Miller. CNN says the latest firing is related to the others; the AP says it's unrelated.
https://thehill.com/homenews/437866-tru ... tor-report
Quote:
President Trump is removing U.S. Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles from his position, according to CNN, which cited multiple administration officials.

...Alles reports directly to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen

...An administration official told CNN that Alles’s firing was part of a “purge” at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) following Nielsen’s resignation, saying Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Frances Cissna and the Office of the General Counsel’s John Mitnick would also likely depart soon.

Top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, an immigration hard-liner, has become Trump’s point man on immigration and border policy in recent weeks and is determined to replace DHS leadership with likeminded officials, according to the official.
A government run by Stephen Miller and led by Donald Trump is a nightmare scenario. And it seems it's starting to happen. I have yet to see any comments by Trump's enablers and sycophants in Congress, though the pro-Trump trolls are out in force with comments like "they serve at the pleasure of the president."



King Donald is certainly busy today:
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... n-lighting
Quote:
President Trump will travel to Texas Wednesday to announce two new executive orders that aim to make it easier for the oil and gas industry to get permits for pipeline construction
To hell with anyone in the way of the oil and gas executives, I suppose.



Edit 2. Not Trump alone - the period covered in 2013-2017 - but worth knowing about:
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... -substance
Quote:
The top watchdog overseeing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a rare "management alert" Monday warning that the agency’s public data on toxic substance releases are not accurate. EPA’s Inspector General (IG) Office said the inconsistencies were “of sufficient concern to warrant immediate reporting.”

The emergency letter from EPA’s acting inspector general to the head of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention warned that certain information the EPA released publicly about its toxic chemical releases did not match with internal EPA data.

“As a result, the public is not receiving complete and timely information about environmental conditions affecting human health,” the letter read.

_________________

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 09 Apr , 2019 1:24 pm
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Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4 ... at-the-fcc
Quote:
Life in the minority at the FCC
Quote:
Since the Trump administration began and Rosenworcel’s Republican colleague Ajit Pai took over as chairman, many of the achievements of the prior FCC have been rolled back and its authority has worn away under an ambitious deregulatory agenda.

The most prominent instance has been Pai’s repeal of net neutrality [which was].. hugely popular among Americans, but ... engendered fierce Republican opposition because it opened the broadband industry up to tougher oversight from the agency.

The Republican majority has also rolled back restrictions on media consolidation at a time when broadcasters and publishers are eagerly chasing mega-deals.

...The day before she spoke with The Hill, Rosenworcel testified alongside Pai before the House Appropriations Committee after the FCC’s leadership requested a budget that would shrink its allocation by nearly $4 million. “So many people think that Washington is rigged against them,” she told Congress. “It saddens me that with this budget, and with the actions of the FCC during the past two years, it appears they are right. That is because too often the FCC has acted at the behest of the corporate forces that surround it, shortchanging the American people and undermining our digital future.”

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/4379 ... n-eu-goods
Quote:
President Trump in an early morning tweet on Tuesday touted his administration's tariffs on $11 billion of European Union (EU) products in the wake of a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling.

"The World Trade Organization finds that the European Union subsidies to Airbus has adversely impacted the United States, which will now put Tariffs on $11 Billion of EU products!" he said.

...Airbus competitor Boeing... praised the move
btw, Boeing is in deep trouble as the investigators start to reveal their findings into the latest Max crash. I'm very glad Indonesia sent the black box to France to be analyzed and not to the US as usual.



https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... mmittee-to
Quote:
Several federal agencies are reportedly refusing to take part in a White House panel that will reassess and counter the government's previous conclusions on climate change.

...The initiative is considered a modification of NSC senior director and climate change denier William Happer's original plan to create a panel on the effects of climate change and national security.

The Department of Defense, the State Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence are among the agencies that have not yet offered experts to the White House for the initiative, according to the Post.
I'm surprised the EPA is currently among them. Science denial has been their modus operandi since Trump took over.



https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politi ... ba-n992191
Quote:
The Trump administration scuttled a landmark deal enabling Cuban baseball players to play on Major League Baseball teams and declared it illegal, the latest move to roll back the warming of relations between the United States and Cuba that began in the Obama administration.

...The Trump administration has sought to deny the communist-run island revenues that help sustain the government there, which national security adviser John Bolton has deemed part of a “troika of tyranny” along with Venezuela and Nicaragua.
And yet the Trump administration is OK with Saudi Arabia and trying to warm up relations with North Korea, where many people are starving and you can be thrown in a concentration camp or assassinated with an anti-aircraft gun if you offend the ruler. Go figure.



A summary of recent events and our currently dysfunctional federal government:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -loyalists
Quote:
President Trump is accelerating his push to appoint loyalists to key administration posts, as he seeks to assert greater control over the federal government and move forward with his agenda.

...Roughly two-thirds of senior White House positions have turned over, according to the Brookings Institution. Trump has ousted nine Cabinet members, and acting officials are now running DHS, the Department of Interior and the Pentagon, in addition to the Office of Management and Budget, Small Business Administration and U.S. mission to the United Nations.

“The metaphor for me is it is like the substitute teacher,” said Max Stier, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, of the acting officials. “They are operating with one hand tied behind their back.”

...With Trump’s selection of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan to lead DHS on an interim basis, CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be without permanent leaders who have the full authority to implement the border policies Trump wants. DHS also lacks a Senate-confirmed deputy secretary.
It's also likely that Trump has discovered that, if he has acting secretaries, he can avoid the normal congressional oversight needed to confirm his appointments and just do as he likes. He has openly said that he likes having acting heads of departments.
Quote:
Trump supporters argue the president deserves to surround himself with like-minded people who will carry out his agenda. “It’s less about loyalty and more about finding people who align with his views,” said Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist and former White House official.
What amazes me is how people are trying to normalize this, as if it's just a policy decision to ask people to do illegal things, then fire them when they remind you it's illegal. Or to nominate unqualified people to the Federal Reserve because they will be loyal to you and do whatever you ask (mind you, Trump is the guy who was known for stiffing his contractors and also for a number of failed businesses, from Trump university to casinos to an airline. And we want him directly controlling the economy?)

We're halfway through a bus ride with a drunk driver and careening all over the place, with cliffs nearby. And yet some people are treating every one of Trump's actions as somehow normal and separate from the hundreds of bad and stupid decisions he's made for the last 2 years, instead of screaming "stop! get rid of this clown!"



Oops, forgot this.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-ba ... um-seekers
Quote:
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Monday to stop the Trump administration’s policy of having some asylum seekers wait in Mexico while their case is under consideration. District Judge Richard Seeborg wrote in his ruling that while it’s unclear how much risk asylum seekers are facing under the policy, “there is no real question that it includes the possibility of irreparable injury.” The ruling will go into effect on Friday.

...The administration recently announced that it would begin to expand the policy, informally known as the "Remain in Mexico" program.
btw, I recently saw a Trump supporter arguing that Trump should just ignore judicial rulings and do as he likes. Given the level of coordinated messaging I've seen from the pro-Trump shills on messageboards, I can't help but wonder who's promoting this sort of dangerous thinking.




Edit to add:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... es-experts
Quote:
n a forthcoming article in the Indiana Law Journal, the Washington University Law professor Kathleen Clark reveals justice department filings have recently changed tack.

...Clark’s article notes that in more than 50 legal opinions over some 150 years justice department lawyers have interpreted the clause in a way that barred any foreign payments or gifts except for ones Congress approved. But filings by the department since June 2017 reveal a new interpretation that “… would permit the president – and all federal officials – to accept unlimited amounts of money from foreign governments, as long as the money comes through commercial transactions with an entity owned by the federal official,” the professor writes.

The justice department stance now closely parallels arguments made in a January 2017 position paper by Trump Organization lawyer Sheri Dillon and several of her law partners...


related:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/us/p ... ments.html
Quote:
The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court on Monday to throw out or at least temporarily halt a lawsuit that accuses President Trump of illegally benefiting from his family’s business, seeking to block more than three dozen subpoenas for documents from the Trump Organization, the president’s trust and other entities.

The department acted in response to recent rulings by a federal district judge in a lawsuit brought by the District of Columbia and the State of Maryland. The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Trump has violated the Constitution’s anticorruption clauses, in part by accepting payments from foreign officials who patronize the Trump International Hotel, only blocks from the White House.

...The Justice Department is arguing that the framers of the Constitution sought only to prevent federal officials from acting as paid employees or officers of foreign or domestic governments, not from profiting from businesses that serve them.




And from the "you've got to be kidding me" files, apparently some idiots, including Trump, claim that we're not allowed to call that vile Stephen Miller a white nationalist because he happens to be Jewish.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... ationalist
Quote:
President Trump on Tuesday hit back at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) after the congresswoman called his senior adviser Stephen Miller a "white nationalist," sharing a quote from a Fox Business Network guest who condemned Omar’s comments."What's completely unacceptable is for Congresswoman Omar to target Jews. In this case, it's not just Stephen Miller," Jeff Ballabon, who advises the president's campaign, said on "Varney & Co."

...Omar tweeted Monday that it was an "outrage" that Miller has influence on the Trump administration's policies, and called the senior adviser a "white nationalist."

...A number of conservatives slammed Omar over her comments, noting that Miller is Jewish.

_________________

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 10 Apr , 2019 1:04 pm
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https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4381 ... least-534m
Quote:
The Trump administration's deployment of troops to the southern border is expected to cost at least $534 million by the end of the fiscal year in September, the Pentagon told lawmakers in a letter released Tuesday.

That includes $350 million on the National Guard-backed mission called Operation Guardian Support for the current and previous fiscal year, and $184 million for the active-duty supported mission called Operation Secure Line.

The Operation Secure Line amount only accounts for the total through the end of this past January, meaning the cost will almost definitely rise.
No surprise. Anyone who thinks using the military to string razor wire, etc. would be cost-effective is an idiot. And, of course, the National Guard gets paid when they get called in from their civilian jobs.


Another one gone:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... elsen-says
Quote:
Claire Grady, acting deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), offered President Trump her resignation Tuesday as the agency finds its upper ranks thinned after a string of departures.
Grady was the next in line to head DHS, under normal conditions, and I expect she saw the writing on the wall when she was passed over.



EDITS:
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/ ... nt-1264801
Quote:
The White House is considering nominating the former head of an anti-immigration group to lead U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services...Julie Kirchner, the former executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which pushes for lower levels of immigration, is being considered as an option to lead the agency, the sources said. She had also been considered for the deputy director role in recent weeks.

If selected and confirmed by the Senate, she would replace Francis Cissna, who is expected to be ousted by the end of this week, according to three sources familiar with the matter, as President Donald Trump and aide Stephen Miller continue their purge of top Homeland Security officials.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/ ... on-1260431
Quote:
As President Donald Trump roils the capital over illegal immigration, his influential aide Stephen Miller is playing a more aggressive behind-the-scenes role in a wider administration shakeup.

...Miller has been telephoning mid-level officials at several federal departments and agencies to demand they do more to stem the influx of immigrants, according to two people familiar with the calls.

...“It’s intimidation,” one of the people who was briefed on the calls told POLITICO. ... Under normal circumstances, if you were a deputy in one of these agencies, it would be very unusual.”

...Miller has left some officials feeling as though their positions, too, could be in jeopardy if they don’t pursue a more aggressive approach to border control. His calls to several officials ... have sometimes included discussions about poor work performance among colleagues, according to a source briefed on one such conversation.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... er/586804/
Quote:
It’s hard to understand what’s going on at the Department of Homeland Security right now—and that should be deeply unsettling. President Donald Trump is in the midst of a purge of the department’s senior leadership...

It’s unclear why the purge is under way, though it appears to be a mix of policy and personal pique. ..

...But if the causes are unclear, the likely consequences are not. All of these moves underscore Trump’s vision of DHS as an immigration-focused organization. But DHS has a sweeping remit—including not only border and immigration agencies, but also FEMA, the Secret Service, TSA, and the Coast Guard—and neglecting its other important responsibilities to focus solely on immigration entails a major risk to the country....





https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... edirect=on
Quote:
The White House is moving to ...[dismantle] the Office of Personnel Management, [which] could be a blueprint for shuttering other departments as it tries to shrink government.

The agency would be pulled apart and its functions divided among three other departments. An executive order directing parts of the transition by the fall is in the final stages of review..The experiment will be closely watched not just on Capitol Hill, but also by other agencies that could be next.

...For Democrats and their allies in the labor movement, the effort to abolish the agency and redistribute its functions is a power play in defiance of Congress.

...It’s not easy to wipe out a federal department, especially one that serves 2.1 million employees across the government. The White House is short on details even as it prepares to move employees out of OPM’s headquarters in downtown Washington. Officials were not able to estimate the short- or long-term savings of the closure....

But by starting the process, the administration hopes to claim a win on a major government reorganization plan that has languished without buy-in from Congress.

...The plan has raised suspicions from federal employees, who have watched the administration attempt to freeze their pay, weaken the power of their unions, and move to clear a faster path to discipline and firing.
Some related older articles:
https://www.stripes.com/news/us/trump-r ... s-1.550645
Quote:
President Donald Trump on Friday abruptly replaced his federal personnel director after just seven months, leaving the agency that oversees 2.1 million civil servants with no permanent leadership at a time when the White House has proposed drastically shrinking its mission.

The White House announced Friday that Margaret Weichert, a senior official of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, is taking over for Jeff Tien Han Pon, the head of the Office of Personnel Management.

...multiple people close to Pon said he was at odds with the administration over its planned revamp of the personnel agency, which would have diminished his role and authority.
Weichert is quoted in the Washington Post article as supportive of Trump's plans to eliminate her agency.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... yee-unions
Quote:
President Donald Trump signed executive orders restricting the activities of unions that represent many of the U.S. government’s 2.1 million employees, the White House said.

...Trump’s move to curtail the activities of federal unions follows a wave of laws signed by Republican governors over the past decade restricting public-sector collective bargaining and weakening government unions -- moves that conservatives see as helpful in shrinking government and undermining political foes.
https://splinternews.com/court-strikes- ... 1828602075
Quote:
U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson struck down most of the provisions of three executive orders President Donald Trump issued last May. The executive orders sought to make it easier to fire federal workers, who total about 2 million across the country, and impede on their right to collective bargaining.

The judge didn’t buy the government’s arguments and reaffirmed Congress’ “clear and unequivocal finding” that “labor organizations and collective bargaining in the civil service are in the public interest,” according to the lengthy ruling.


https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2 ... ons-000890
Quote:
The Trump administration has taken great pride in dismantling regulations issued during the Obama years, particularly rules designed to protect the environment or consumers. Federal agencies have spent the past two-plus years targeting rules designed to make chemical plants safer, conserve natural gas at oil and mining facilities and improve compliance with fuel economy standards, among many others. But that process has been falling apart in court. By the most recent count, the administration has either lost or given up in 34 out of 36 deregulatory cases, a win rate of just over 5 percent.

Despite that low success rate, the administration is actually winning — at least some of the time. That’s because the administration has learned to use delaying tactics to undermine and even repeal federal regulations it doesn’t like, even when judges rule against it in court...

https://www.citizensforethics.org/12-in ... vacancies/
Quote:
Inspectors General (IGs) play a key role as internal agency watchdogs that help the public and Congress promote ethics and accountability in our government. In just the last month, IGs have provided crucial information to the public,... Given the importance of IGs in curbing ethical abuses by the Trump administration, it should come as no surprise that the President has allowed many of these positions to remain vacant and nominated cronies in other cases.

Six months ago, there were 13 IG vacancies across the federal agencies. Since then, that number has only reduced by one...



https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/ ... ng-1264194
Quote:
The Trump administration is considering auctioning off Florida’s coastal waters for oil and gas drilling — and Republicans are warning it could cost the president dearly in Florida in the 2020 election.

An industry lobbying offensive has put it on the cusp of achieving its holy grail: access to the resource-rich eastern Gulf of Mexico. The idea is so politically toxic in Florida that past presidents haven't even entertained it.

...Industry representatives have said a plan has been imminent since last fall, but many expect the Interior Department is waiting for the Senate to confirm acting Secretary David Bernhardt to fill the agency's top slot before formally releasing the draft. ...

Multiple oil and gas industry sources told POLITICO that the eastern Gulf, along with the Atlantic coast, are included in the administration’s current five-year off-shore drilling proposal, which hasn’t yet been released.


https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... sm/586831/
Quote:
If Herman Cain and Stephen Moore are confirmed to the Federal Reserve, it would hardly be the first time that unqualified people ended up in positions of national importance. It is a fact of political life that all governments, of every kind, are infested with hacks and cronies....

Donald Trump’s administration, however, has transcended cronyism and declared a war on expertise, in which unbiased knowledge is itself somehow politically suspect if it does not accord with President Trump’s beliefs and assertions—and especially if it conflicts with his personal interests. In this administration, complicated issues are not problems to be solved or tasks to be administered for the public good, but threats to be hammered down by alert sycophants. As the Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro once put it: “My function, really, as an economist is to try to provide the underlying analytics that confirm his intuition. And his intuition is always right in these matters.”...

...we are now experiencing the kind of politicization of senior positions normally only seen in authoritarian states, where appointments are kept within tight circles of people whose commitment (or family connection) to the leader is more important than experience or knowledge. Trump’s appointments are more and more obvious attempts to capture the machinery of government not for partisan interest, conservative ideas, or even the passing interest of some beloved donors, but purely for the sake of Donald J. Trump...

_________________

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


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 11 Apr , 2019 12:41 pm
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New Education Secretary in Continuing Purge
Quote:
The shakeup in the Trump Administration continued on Wednesday as Donald Trump named a fellow television personality, Lori Loughlin, to be the new Secretary of Education.

In making the announcement, Trump praised Loughlin for her “disruptive approach” to college admissions and expressed hope that she could bring the same brand of innovative thinking to the Department of Education.







I actually fell for this, for a second, before I realized who the writer was and why the name Lori Loughlin seemed so familiar. DeVos doesn't seem to be a Trump favorite - I've seen several reports where she opposed what Trump wanted and he just rolled right over her and listened to other people. Even when it concerns her own department. For instance, she and Jeff Sessions were apparently opposed to Trump rolling back protections for transgender students. https://www.latimes.com/local/californi ... story.html And Trump really seems to enjoy humiliating DeVos after she loyally defends his policies to Congress. Still, things are crazy when it's this easy to believe a spoof.

_________________

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 11 Apr , 2019 4:52 pm
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More about Trump's new executive orders:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/ ... 31267.html
Quote:
Trump's orders direct his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to change a part of the United States's clean water law that has allowed states, on the basis of environmental reasons, to delay projects such as pipelines to carry natural gas to New England and coal export terminals on the West Coast.

...The orders will direct the EPA to review and update guidance issued during the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama on the so-called 401 provision of the Clean Water Act. The measure required companies to get certifications from states before building interstate pipelines approved by the federal government.

...One of the orders will direct the transportation secretary to propose allowing liquefied natural gas, a liquid form of the fuel, to be shipped in approved rail cars, a change that could increase its flow between terminals and markets.


https://www.sightline.org/2017/03/07/li ... -near-you/
Quote:
For safety reasons, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) does not allow railroads in the US to transport LNG by rail. Or rather, it did not allow this until October 2015, when, with virtually no public knowledge about the development, FRA granted a two-year permit to Alaska Railroad, suddenly making it the very first rail corporation in the US to carry the volatile fuel.

Alaska Rail hauled its first LNG cargo in September 2016 as both an LNG tank car demonstration and a cost experiment. It was a move watched eagerly by railroads in the lower 4... Railroads looking to offset recent losses in coal and oil haulage are looking to LNG, but the challenge is the same one that accompanies all fossil fuel by rail transportation: how to protect public safety...

Alaska’s fossil fuel energy requirements and its relatively small and dispersed population are quite different from those of the Lower 48, making it a poor case study for justifying country-wide shipments. And the stakes are high: in the wrong conditions, LNG can erupt into catastrophic explosions, with blast zones larger and more severe than the conflagrations from oil trains...
The most famous oil train disaster in North America was not that long ago:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42548824
Quote:
Lac-Megantic: The runaway train that destroyed a town




https://thehill.com/policy/finance/4383 ... year-as-in
Quote:
Report finds twice as many companies will pay zero in taxes this year
The US deficit has ballooned since the tax cuts, as many expected.
Quote:
The Treasury Department reported this week that the deficit for fiscal 2019 is likely to reach $1.1 trillion by the end of the year, largely due to the tax plan.
Some economists are also warning of signs of a recession. No doubt part of the reason Trump wants to control the Fed, to temporarily defer any economic consequences of his tariffs and other policies until after he's re-elected.



https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/ ... 35453.html
Quote:
US President Donald Trump, welcomed Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to the White House on Tuesday, saying a lot of progress had been made with Egypt in terms of "terrorism". Trump, with Sisi at his side, also told reporters that the two had important things to discuss military issues and trade. "I think he is doing a great job," Trump said as he sat down for talks with Sisi in the White House. "We have never had a better relationship between Egypt and United States than we do right now."

...Trump warmly embraced Sisi despite concerns among US politicians and rights advocates over human rights violations....


I wouldn't be surprised if this was another of Netanyahu's requests to Trump:
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... ent-denied
Quote:
The founder of a movement to boycott Israel has reportedly been denied entry to the United States, despite having necessary travel documents.

Airline staff at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport told Omar Barghouti on Wednesday that U.S. immigration officials had told the U.S. counsel in Tel Aviv to deny him permission to enter the country for a speaking tour, according to NPR. "Barghouti was not provided an explanation for his denial of entry beyond 'immigration matter,' " the Arab American Institute, which had arranged the trip, said in a statement.

...Barghouti, a Palestinian activist... has a master’s degree from Columbia University and lived in the U.S. for a decade, and has had difficulties traveling between the U.S. and Israel, where he is a permanent resident...issues [that] typically involve the Israeli government rather than Washington.

...The report comes the same week House Republicans launched a discharge petition to force a vote on a Senate bill allowing state and city governments to penalize entities promoting the BDS movement.

_________________

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 15 Apr , 2019 9:32 pm
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKCN1RR0UX
Quote:
Denials of U.S. immigrant visas skyrocket after little-heralded rule change
Quote:
More and more aspiring immigrants – especially Mexicans – are being denied visas based on determinations by the U.S. State Department that they might become “public charges,” dependent on the government for support... Lawyers for some immigrants say consular officers are denying visas even when applicants fulfill legal requirements to prove they will be financially independent.

...One reason for the rise in refusals are little-known changes last year in the State Department’s foreign affairs manual that gave diplomats wider discretion in deciding visa denials on public-charge grounds.

The changes occurred in January 2018 as the Department of Homeland Security was preparing a separate, highly controversial proposal to restrict immigration on public-charge grounds. The regulation, officially proposed in October, received more than 200,000 public comments, which will likely take months longer to fully evaluate.

Some critics say the State Department is using a back door, tightening immigration policy without going through a similarly high-profile rulemaking process.
The man they use to illustrate the issue has an $18/ hr job waiting for him in the US, a wife and children who are citizens, and a father-in-law who has legally agreed to support him if it becomes necessary.







https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4388 ... wing-trump
Quote:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that she spoke with the sergeant-at-arms of the House to ensure the safety of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) after President Trump tweeted a video targeting the congresswoman.

"Following the President’s tweet, I spoke with the Sergeant-at-Arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff. They will continue to monitor and address the threats she faces," Pelosi said in a statement.

Pelosi also called on Trump to take down the video, which she called "disrespectful and dangerous."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ar/586993/
Quote:
Ilhan Omar Falls Victim to the Outrage Exhibitionists

In attacking the representative over a small, unintentional slight, Donald Trump and the populist right are displaying bad faith.
Quote:
Last month, Representative Ilhan Omar attended a banquet hosted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, where she delivered remarks for roughly 20 minutes.

A major theme was prejudice against Muslims. “Here’s the truth,” she said. “For far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen. Frankly, I’m tired of it. And every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it. CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”

Omar’s meaning was clear: Many Muslims felt collectively blamed for something that was indisputably perpetrated by a tiny fraction of their co-religionists and marshaled new resources to protect their civil rights in response...Her speech was covered live. It generated no blowback upon delivery. Then, this month, an Australian imam stripped one of her remarks from its context and tweeted, “Ilhan Omar mentions 9/11 and does not consider it a terrorist attack on the USA by terrorists, instead she refers to it as ‘Some people did something,’ then she goes on to justify the establishment of a terrorist organization (CAIR) on US soil.”

...Representative Dan Crenshaw retweeted the imam’s remarks, seizing a chance for a woke callout and the expression of disdainful outrage....

...Then President Trump entered the fray Friday, publishing a demagogic tweet crafted to aggrieve millions of Americans with video footage of the 9/11 attacks interspersed with edited footage of Omar saying “Some people did something.”... This particular callout is deeply irresponsible, especially coming from a president. ...

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4 ... s-over-19k
Quote:
A petition calling for Twitter and Facebook to suspend President Trump's social media accounts earned over 19,000 signatures over the weekend after the president posted a controversial video featuring freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).


btw, apparently, our moronic president decided he should be giving the French advice about how to put out the fire that destroyed Notre Dame today - he wanted them to dump flying tankers of water on a fragile, burning structure in the middle of a densely populated part of a city with other structures nearby. Words fail.

_________________

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 16 Apr , 2019 3:25 pm
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Trump's tweet placed in perspective with those of other world leaders (most of the story summarizes what they know about the Notre Dame fire and its consequences so far). The old fool is so sure he knows better than everyone else, and doesn't have the sense to just extend his sympathies:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/ ... 56355.html
Quote:
So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019

UN Secretary Antonio Guterres... Horrified by the pictures coming from Paris with the fire engulfing Notre Dame Cathedral - a unique example of world heritage that has stood tall since the 14th century. My thoughts are with the people and government of France. https://t.co/KnLegnlRFH

...EU Council President Donald Tusk... Notre-Dame de Paris est Notre-Dame de toute l’Europe. We are all with Paris today.

...Former US President Barak Obama... Notre Dame is one of the world’s great treasures, and we’re thinking of the people of France in your time of grief. It’s in our nature to mourn when we see history lost – but it’s also in our nature to rebuild for tomorrow, as strong as we can.

...UK Prime Minister Theresa May ... My thoughts are with the people of France tonight and with the emergency services who are fighting the terrible blaze at Notre-Dame cathedral.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif... Saddened that Notre Dame—that iconic monument dedicated to the worship of our one God & that brought all of us closer through Hugo's literary masterpiece—is partially destroyed after standing through wars & revolution for 800 yrs. Our thoughts are w/ the French & all Catholics.


Despite all the Republican National Committee's efforts to protect Trump from a primary challenger, he now has one. Weld seems to be a long shot candidate. We'll see if he can make any headway against the barriers Trump's protectors have put up, or if anyone else makes an appearance now that one Republican has challenged Trump:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/ ... 33856.html
Quote:
Former Massachusetts Governor William Weld announced his candidacy on Monday to challenge President Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination.

..."I really think if we have six more years of the same stuff we've had out of the White House the last two years that would be a political tragedy," he said on CNN. "So I would be ashamed of myself if I didn't raise my hand and run." Weld has accused Trump of leaving the nation in "grave peril" and has said his "priorities are skewed towards promotion of himself rather than for the good of the country."

...But ... Trump's campaign has taken extraordinary steps in cementing control over the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the broader nomination process as it seeks to minimise the risk of any potential challenger doing the same to the president. ... "Any effort to challenge the president's nomination is bound to go absolutely nowhere," the RNC said in statement responding to Weld's announcement, noting that its operation and the Republican Party are firmly behind Trump.


Edit:
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4 ... ime-warner
Quote:
The White House is rejecting a request from top House Democrats for information that would shed light on whether President Trump tried to sway the Justice Department into opposing the AT&T-Time Warner merger.

...Nadler and Cicilline made their request last month after The New Yorker published a story reporting that Trump had pressured Gary Cohn, his former top economic adviser, to press the Justice Department to intervene on the merger. The president was reportedly against the deal out of spite toward CNN, which is owned by Time Warner.
Trump's lawyers are using their all-purpose excuse of confidentiality, i.e., "protected communications between the President and his most senior advisors that are at the very core of the Executive Branch's confidentiality interests.”


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... olitics-vp
Quote:
The Trump administration will allow U.S. citizens to file lawsuits over property confiscated in Cuba during the 1959 revolution, a move that reverses two decades of policy and will create new tensions with allies whose companies do business there.

As the Defense Dept warned, Trump labeling Iran's military a terrorist organization would have consequences, even if it's just to inflame tensions in the Middle East.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4391 ... terrorists
Quote:
Iranian lawmakers approved a measure Tuesday designating U.S. forces in the Middle East as terrorists, The Associated Press reported.

The bill, which was overwhelmingly approved by the Iranian parliament, comes a day after the U.S.'s terrorism designation for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officially took effect... the bill... accuses U.S. forces of “terrorist actions” and demands authorities use “legal, political and diplomatic” measures to neutralize them, according to the AP.

_________________

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 17 Apr , 2019 1:27 pm
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https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4392 ... -yemen-war
Quote:
President Trump on Tuesday vetoed a measure that would have cut off U.S. military support for the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen's civil war, rebuking Congress for a second time this year.

...The resolution, which would have required Trump to withdraw any U.S. troops in or "affecting" Yemen within 30 days unless they are fighting al Qaeda, reached the president's desk after it passed the House in a vote of 247-175 earlier this month. The Senate had passed it in a vote of 54-46 last month.


https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -financial
Quote:
Trump makes moves to resist congressional subpoenas for financial information: report
Quote:
His lawyers have reportedly urged some businesses including an accounting firm that handles his finances to not comply with congressional subpoenas, a move that has rankled some lawmakers.

One senior Democratic aide familiar with congressional efforts ...told the Post that it was unlikely that the bank and other firms would ignore a congressional subpoena.

...Deutsche Bank told the Post in a statement that it was complying with all congressional investigations in which it was involved.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... ed-by-lead
Quote:
The first golden eagle in Yellowstone to be fitted with a tracking device has reportedly died of lead poisoning. ABC News reports officials with the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed the death of the eagle and attributed the lead poisoning to the bird likely consuming lead bullet fragments while scavenging for food in the fall and winter months.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... ammunition
Quote:
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed an order Thursday overturning a ... policy implemented by former Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Dan Ashe on Jan. 19, the Obama administration’s last full day in office.

Ashe’s policy banned the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle on all FWS wildlife refuges that allow hunting or fishing, as well as in all other hunting or fishing regulated by the agency elsewhere.

It was meant to help prevent plants and animals from being poisoned by lead left on the ground or in the water.




This should lead to another nice mess. Not to mention excellent profits for the US immigrant detention industry, at taxpayer expense.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... istration-
Quote:
The US attorney general, William Barr, on Tuesday issued guidance overruling a precedent set by George W Bush’s justice department in 2005, which enshrined asylum seekers’ right to bond, irrespective of how they entered the country.

Barr stated in his updated guidance that the 2005 decision was “wrongly decided” and he would move to block immigration judges from offering people who have crossed the border illegally and have established a reasonable claim of torture or persecution the chance of release as their cases are decided in immigration court.

With the immigration court backlog at an all-time high – there are close to 900,000 pending cases – asylum seekers are waiting over 1,000 days on average for their cases to be processed, meaning Barr’s decision could lead to the indefinite detention of thousands of people.

...Children seeking asylum are currently protected by a separate ruling from a federal court in California that ordered they must be released from detention after 20 days. The Trump administration, ...has unsuccessfully tried to reverse this ruling. A justice department official did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the department would seek to use Barr’s new rules in cases involving families and children

_________________

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 18 Apr , 2019 5:21 pm
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https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... mp/587176/
Quote:
7 Must-Read Moments From the Mueller Report

A breakdown of the massive, 448-page document
Quote:
1. The special counsel explains why it didn’t bring criminal charges related to collusion, and details how some of the individuals it investigated or interviewed lied or deleted communications. ..

...Mueller’s team explains how it “determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgement.”... Apart from OLC’s constitutional view, we recognized that a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President’s capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... mp/587182/
Quote:
Read Robert Mueller’s Written Summaries of His Russia Report

The details the special counsel apparently found most important for the public to know
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/ ... 16647.html
Quote:
US: What does the redacted Mueller report say?
Quote:
Here are the key takeaways from the report:
1. Trump tried to seize control, influence probe...

...While declining to prosecute Trump for obstruction, the special counsel said such a determination could be left to the US Congress.

"Under applicable Supreme Court precedent, the Constitution does not categorically and permanently immunise a president for obstructing justice. "The separation-of-powers doctrine authorises Congress to protect official proceedings, including those of courts and grand juries, from corrupt, obstructive acts regardless of their source. "The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the president's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.

2. Questions of collusion: 'Not sufficient evidence for criminal charges'

...The report said there were numerous contacts between members of Trump's circle and Russia and that the campaign "expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts."

...Manafort urged Gates not to plead guilty after they were both indicted by Mueller, apparently believing that they would be pardoned by the president if they did not cooperate with investigators. Trump's numerous sympathetic statements before and during Manafort's criminal trial could be interpreted as an effort to sway the outcome, but they also could be interpreted as a sign that he genuinely felt sorry for Manafort, Mueller said.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... key-events
Quote:
Trump told Mueller more than 30 times he did not remember key events
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4 ... troll-farm
Quote:
Special counsel Robert Mueller in his highly-anticipated report said his team identified "dozens" of U.S. political rallies organized on social media by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian troll farm that was later indicted for attempting to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

According to Mueller's report, which was released on Thursday, the IRA organized political rallies in the U.S. using social media starting in 2015 and continued to coordinate rallies after the 2016 election.


The officially released version of the report is not searchable. Several people have put searchable pdfs online. This is one of the safer ones:
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/439 ... hite-house


IMO, anyone who claims the Mueller report - even this redacted version - exonerates Trump is either a rabid partisan or a total fool. But Congress isn't going to do its duty and impeach this lying, corrupt, ignorant bastard so we're basically screwed.
btw, I laughed that the report notes Sarah Sanders lied for Trump. Hell, she does that constantly - it's not hard to see.

Edit: It also seems to me that Trump learned "plausible deniability" well from Roy Cohn. Because much of the argument against charging him comes down to that.





https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... department
Quote:
State Department and intelligence officials reportedly clashed over a Trump administration report on international arms control accord compliance...The clash reportedly occurred on Tuesday when the State Department briefly posted an unclassified version of its annual report on international cooperation with arms control agreements before removing it, according to the news service.

Intelligence officials reportedly were concerned about the report’s framing, saying they suspected it was painting Iran in a deliberately unflattering light rather than providing an objective assessment, according to Reuters, citing five sources familiar with the matter.

https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... lear-talks
Quote:
North Korea on Thursday demanded that the U.S. keep Secretary of State Mike Pompeo out of future nuclear negotiations, instead requesting someone "who is more careful and mature."

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/air- ... -to-enroll
Quote:
Air Force Academy will no longer allow transgender students to enroll

_________________

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 19 Apr , 2019 1:15 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
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https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/439 ... s-and-barr
Quote:
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Friday ripped Attorney General William Barr for declaring President Trump did not obstruct justice with regards to investigations into possible Russian collusion in 2016.

“Mueller passed the obstruction question to the Congress and Barr intercepted the pass and tried to take it over himself,” King said in an appearance on CNN’s “New Day.”
https://thehill.com/policy/national-sec ... unanswered
Quote:
More than 900 redactions in special counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report left unanswered major questions about President Trump’s knowledge of Russian-led efforts to steal and disseminate Democratic documents in the 2016 presidential campaign.

They also indicate that federal investigators and prosecutors still have a way to go before closing the book on Russia’s efforts to help Trump defeat Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the last election.

While Mueller has completed his investigation, he has transferred two mystery cases to other divisions of the Department of Justice and referred 14 matters of evidence of potential criminal wrongdoing — of which 12 have been kept secret — to other law enforcement authorities.
https://www.euronews.com/2019/04/19/tru ... -t-n996296
Quote:
resident Donald Trump on Friday ripped special counsel Robert Mueller's "crazy" report, saying that it contained statements about him that "are total bullshit."

"Statements are made about me by certain people in the Crazy Mueller Report, in itself written by 18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters, which are fabricated & totally untrue. Watch out for people that take so-called 'notes,' when the notes never existed until needed," Trump wrote.

..."This was an Illegally Started Hoax that never should have happened," Trump wrote.

The comments were his harshest so far since the redacted report was released Thursday by Attorney General William Barr.
Only yesterday, Dear Leader and his Trumpists were celebrating the report as total vindication. And Sarah Sanders called it a good day for Trump because of the release of the report. Certainly didn't last long.



https://www.euronews.com/2019/04/19/mue ... xt-n996316
Quote:
There's one all-consuming question for the Democratic Party now that the Mueller report has been released: What now?

The ball is in Congress's court. ...On the one hand: Democratic 2020 candidates have been reflecting the reality on the ground ...
But congressional leaders also face the opposite question: Without trying to hold the president accountable, what might they be mainstreaming for the future? If they let this go, do they normalize this type of presidential behavior in the future? If they don't pursue impeachment, what message are they sending about what a president can get away with? It's a political dilemma, but also an ethical one...


...So much of the commentary around the Mueller report has revolved around the parsing of legal arguments about collusion and obstruction.

But beyond the legal weeds, this glaring picture remains: Trump and key members of his team showed themselves in this report to be unbothered by foreign interference in U.S. elections, unconcerned about following the letter or the spirit of the laws about the conduct of a campaign, and unencumbered by the obligation to tell the truth to the American people.

And we've already been so desensitized to it, because so much of the evidence Mueller provided was either reported contemporaneously or simply uttered in public...


...At least 11. That's the number of people in Trump's orbit who the Mueller report shows did NOT go along with a potentially problematic request from the president...


https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4396 ... n-to-whats
Quote:
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said Friday he's "begging the American people to pay attention to what's going on" the day after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. “I think we are in a very difficult time in this country’s history and I’m begging the American people to pay attention to what’s going on," the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Cummings is leading that panel's investigations into President Trump.

"And I often say that people are going to look back at this time 200 years from now and ask the question, ‘What did you do to reverse this?’” he said.




New sanctions by the Trump administration on Latin American countries that are socialist (some of it has already been reported; some hasn't.) Needless to say, there seems to be quite the focus on socialism rather than corruption per se...
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/ ... 24288.html
Quote:
The administration of United States President Donald Trump intensified its crackdown on Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela on Wednesday, rolling back Obama administration policy and announcing new restrictions and sanctions against the three countries, rolling back Obama administration policy and announcing new restrictions and sanctions against the three countries, whose leaders were dubbed the "three stooges of socialism" by US National Security Advisor John Bolton. "The troika of tyranny - Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua - is beginning to crumble," Bolton said in a hard-hitting speech near Miami, Florida on the 58th anniversary of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, in which the US attempted to overthrow the government of Cuba.

Bolton announced a new cap on the amount of money that families in the US can send their relatives in Cuba...





btw, I found this analysis/ editorial interesting:
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opini ... 29957.html
Quote:
Guaido's military mutiny miscalculation

The Venezuelan armed forces are not ready to rebel against Maduro and here is why.
Quote:
One month on from Juan Guaido's decision to declare himself acting president of Venezuela in parallel to President Nicolas Maduro, the country remains in a strange and dangerous limbo. ...

...despite his offer of an amnesty for military personnel transferring their allegiance to his presidency, only a handful of Venezuela's thousands of generals have made the switch. Even a major standoff over allowing US aid into the country on February 23 saw only a small number of defections by low-ranking officials....

The backdrop to any discussion of the Venezuelan military must be its politicisation long before and during the presidency of Hugo Chavez. .. ....In office, Chavez developed [the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement] into a broader civil-military alliance that emphasised social responsibility, participation in national development, and anti-imperialism. Today these three pillars of the civil-military alliance play contradictory roles in the ongoing crisis...

....while for Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar the oppressor was Spain, by the end of the 20th century the United States had come to occupy this role.This in itself makes the US sponsorship of Guaido's bid to unseat Maduro extremely hard to swallow for the military. More fuel was added to the fire by National Security Adviser John Bolton admitting that Venezuelan oil is a motivating factor for US involvement and by Trump assigning the Venezuela portfolio to Elliott Abrams, best known for his role in covering up gruesome atrocities and illegally channeling funds to murderous paramilitary armies in Central America in the 1980s.


Interesting developments regarding US sanctions on Iran, US allies and aid for Iran's flooding disaster:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/ ... 58215.html
Quote:
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have donated 95 tonnes of aid to their flood-hit regional rival Iran, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

...Torrential rainfall since March 19 in the Islamic republic of Iran has killed at least 76 people. The downpours have left large swaths of the country submerged by floodwater and caused damage estimated to total about $2.5bn so far.

Tehran has complained that United States sanctions have obstructed relief efforts. ...banking sanctions ...make it impossible to receive financial donations from outside the country.

...In the midst of the spat, Iran has received aid from neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and Kuwait, as well as from Germany, France and Japan. ...



https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/clim ... ation.html
Quote:
The Interior Department’s internal watchdog has opened an investigation into ethics complaints against the agency’s newly installed secretary, David Bernhardt.

Mr. Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for the oil and agribusiness industries, was confirmed by the Senate last week to head the agency,...He has played a central role in writing policies designed to advance President Trump’s policy of “energy dominance” and expanding fossil fuel exploration.

... Among the chief complaints have been allegations, revealed by three separate New York Times investigations, that Mr. Bernhardt used his position to advance a policy pushed by his former lobbying client; that he continued working as a lobbyist after filing legal paperwork declaring that he had ceased lobbying; and that he intervened to block the release of a scientific report showing the harmful effects of a chemical pesticide on certain endangered species...


EDIT:

It seems the self-invited, Trump-inspired, armed right wing citizen's group (AKA "militia") has been detaining people at the border:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/us/n ... litia.html
Quote:
Militia in New Mexico Detains Asylum Seekers at Gunpoint
Quote:
AA right-wing militia group operating in southern New Mexico has begun stopping groups of migrant families and detaining them at gunpoint before handing them over to Border Patrol agent....

The American Civil Liberties Union denounced the militia’s actions in a letter on Thursday that asked New Mexico’s governor and attorney general to investigate the group. The A.C.L.U. said the militia had no legal authority under New Mexico or federal law to detain or arrest migrants in the United States.

...“We’re just here to support the Border Patrol and show the public the reality of the border,” said Mr. Benvie [spokesperson for the militia group] ... He said the organization plans to remain on the border until the extended wall proposed by President Trump is built or Congress changes immigration laws to make it harder for migrants to request asylum....“Border Patrol has never asked us to stand down.”

The governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, said in a statement that it was “completely unacceptable” that migrant families “might be menaced or threatened in any way, shape or form when they arrive at our border.” “It should go without saying that regular citizens have no authority to arrest or detain anyone,” she added.
The Guardian's article - the first one I read - is not as balanced, but suggests that the vigilantes misrepresented themselves as Border Patrol in the video:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... a-detained
Quote:
Several videos taken at the border in New Mexico this week appeared to show men belonging to a group that calls itself the United Constitutional Patriots approaching migrant families and children, ordering them to sit down, calling federal agents on them, and at one point potentially misrepresenting themselves by saying “border patrol” as they approached.
Maybe we'll get lucky and these clowns will be charged. I, for one, don't want a bunch of right wing vigilantes with guns running around "enforcing" the law.

The best part is that the group's spokesperson claims “We can't make them stay if they don't want to.” Sure, a bunch of fanatical guys with guns surrounds you and tells you to sit on the ground, and you're going to say "Oh, you can't really arrest me. I think I'll just stroll off and risk being shot." Not even an American would do that. And many of these people are from countries where armed gangs run around shooting people they don't like.


And it gets even better:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-lov ... s-to-trump
Quote:
QAnon-Loving Border Militia Is Run by Ex-Con Who Says He Talks to Trump

Larry Mitchell Hopkins runs an armed civilian group that peddles far-right conspiracies and claims to work with Border Patrol. He says Trump’s asked him about ‘Muslim immigration.’



Edit:

Does Trump know which side we're on?
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -combating
Quote:
The White House said Friday that President Trump spoke earlier this week with a Libyan general whose forces are fighting the U.S.-backed unity government in the country's capital of Tripoli.

...“President Donald J. Trump spoke on April 15, 2019, with Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar to discuss ongoing counterterrorism efforts and the need to achieve peace and stability in Libya," the White House said in a statement Friday. "The President recognized Field Marshal Haftar’s significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya’s oil resources, and the two discussed a shared vision for Libya’s transition to a stable, democratic political system."

...Though Haftar is not popular in the western part of Libya due to past connections with Gadhafi, he is said to have the backing of regional powers such as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, according to the BBC.
This also seems strange:
Quote:
The U.S. mission to the United Nations said Thursday it could not support a resolution before the Security Council calling for a ceasefire, though the mission did not detail its reasons, according to reports.
It might be noteworthy that this news came out on Friday afternoon, the time to bury stuff (especially before a holiday weekend) though Trump spoke to Haftar on Monday.


https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... to-mueller
Quote:
President Trump is venting frustration with associates who cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation after their notes and first-hand observations were used to paint a negative and damaging picture of his presidency.

...Trump on Thursday traveled to his Mar-a-Lago estate with White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Steven Groves, a White House spokesman on legal matters, in addition to his usual cadre of aides including acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney...

Former White House counsel Don McGahn could be a prime target for Trump...McGahn characterized Trump’s orders to oust Mueller as “crazy shit” ...

Rob Porter, the former White House staff secretary, may also come into Trump’s crosshairs because he testified that he ignored the president’s instructions to see if then-No. 3 Justice Department official Rachel Brand could take over the Russia probe.

Former White House deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn told investigators he refused to pressure then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to take control of the investigation.

Notes from Sessions’s chief of staff Jody Hunt’s showed Trump lamented that he was “f---ed” because of Mueller’s hiring.
Fortunately for them, the targets mostly seem to be "former" aides. btw, Trump played golf with Rush Limbaugh and a couple of other buddies today. It must be nice to be the president and have so little to do.

_________________

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 23 Apr , 2019 5:02 pm
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Good riddance #1:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... sideration
Quote:
President Trump said Monday that former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has withdrawn from consideration to be nominated to the Federal Reserve Board amid GOP senators’ intense opposition. “My friend Herman Cain, a truly wonderful man, has asked me not to nominate him for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board. I will respect his wishes. Herman is a great American who truly loves our Country!” Trump tweeted.

Four Republican senators said they would not support Cain, all but dooming his chances of confirmation. The decision marks a setback for Trump’s effort to install allies at the central bank, which has traditionally been independent of politics.
I can see why Trump and Cain are such good friends:
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/4400 ... sideration
Quote:
Herman Cain on Monday wrote that he withdrew from consideration for a Federal Reserve appointment because of the money and influence he would lose by working for the central bank....

[He]argued in a column published Monday afternoon by The Western Journal that the GOP opposition and concerns about his background had nothing to do with his decision to withdraw....[and]did not want to take “a pay cut” because of “ethical restrictions.”


Good riddance #2:
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watc ... gged-about
Quote:
The leader of a right-wing militia group that has been detaining migrants who enter the U.S. through Mexico allegedly bragged two years ago that the group's members had received training to assassinate [liberal public] figures...

The revelation about Larry Hopkins, the leader of the United Constitutional Patriots, was included in court papers filed Monday, according to Reuters.

...witnesses accused Hopkins of saying his group was planning to assassinate not just Obama, but 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and George Soros, a wealthy supporter of liberal causes.
The FBI arrested Hopkins for being a felon in possession of a firearm. I don't think anyone in the group has been charged (yet?) for playing border patrol with guns and detaining people.



https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... wn-on-iran
Quote:
Oil prices on Monday spiked to their highest levels since October after President Trump announced the U.S. would not renew sanction waivers that had allowed eight countries to buy Iranian oil. Brent crude rocketed past $74 a barrel, its highest point this year, and American consumers may soon see the price increase at gas stations nationwide.

...The White House said Monday it had struck agreements with oil-producing allies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates "to take timely action to assure that global demand is met as all Iranian oil is removed from the market.”

Iran responded by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-envi ... uring-iran
Quote:
The arithmetic of the policy is that, according to the White House, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will make up any shortfall in world oil supply. Sounds good, except Saudi Arabia’s own official statement on the issue was: “The kingdom would like to reiterate its longstanding policy of working towards oil market stability at all times. Accordingly, Saudi Arabia will coordinate with fellow oil producers to ensure adequate supplies are available to consumers while ensuring the global oil market does not go out of balance.” President Trump’s tweet of “more than make up” implies prices will go down. The Saudi statement makes no such commitment.

While Saudi Arabia has plenty of so-called “spare capacity” to increase production, the UAE has much less. Nevertheless, the president appears to think he has some sort of promise; he spoke by telephone about the issue with the UAE’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed last Thursday. That was the day the Mueller report came out.



https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4 ... rotections
Quote:
The Trump administration appears ready to roll back health care protections for transgender people...

A proposed rule from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that’s expected in the coming days would make it easier for doctors, hospitals and insurance companies to deny care or coverage to transgender patients, as well as women who have had abortions.

...The rule is expected to weaken or eliminate an anti-discrimination provision enshrined in ObamaCare.



One of the more interesting calls for impeachment:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... mpeachment
Quote:
Former Trump transition official calls for impeachment
Quote:
J.W. Verret, a George Mason University law professor who briefly worked on President Trump's transition team, is calling for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump in the wake of the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

Verret, who worked as deputy director of economic policy for Trump's presidential transition from August to October 2016, first argued for impeachment last week, saying that there was "enough" in Mueller's report to justify it.

...the Mueller report served as a "tipping point" for him, one that sparked him to transition "from Trump team member to pragmatist about Trump to advocate for his impeachment."

Verret, who has worked on every Republican presidential transition team of the last decade... "amicably" parted ways with [Trump's transition] team in October after it became clear he wasn't a fit.
Verret's editorial:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... nt/587785/
Quote:
The Mueller Report Was My Tipping Point

I was a Trump transition staffer, and I’ve seen enough. It’s time for impeachment.
Quote:
Let’s start at the end of this story. This weekend, I read Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report twice, and realized that enough was enough—I needed to do something. I’ve worked on every Republican presidential transition team for the past 10 years and recently served as counsel to the Republican-led House Financial Services Committee. My permanent job is as a law professor at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, which is not political, but where my colleagues have held many prime spots in Republican administrations.

If you think calling for the impeachment of a sitting Republican president would constitute career suicide for someone like me, you may end up being right. But I did exactly that this weekend, tweeting that it’s time to begin impeachment proceedings...

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4400 ... ler-report
Quote:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sought to tamp down the notion of impeaching President Trump in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller's report, indicating to Democrats ahead of a conference call later Monday that they have other options.

House Democratic leaders are grappling with a caucus divided over how to proceed after Mueller found several instances of Trump potentially obstructing justice.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... on/587701/
Quote:
“There’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians,” President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, discussing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

... Nearly three years after the first reports of Russian hacking into Democratic National Committee computers, there’s been little effort to take action that would contradict Giuliani’s judgment...By deciding not to act, the American government has effectively decided that foreign interference is acceptable.

The lack of action stems from two roots. The first is Trump’s refusal to acknowledge or condemn Russian interference, apparently due to a fear that doing so would delegitimize his electoral victory. While Giuliani has happily accepted Russian responsibility—“You think this is the first time the Russians have interfered in an American election?” he said on CNN—Trump has not.

The second is a wily rhetorical maneuver by Trump and Giuliani. The president first argued in July 2017, against most evidence, that taking information from foreign governments is standard procedure in politics. In July 2018, Giuliani began emphasizing that argument frequently. The effect was to convert questions about Trump’s personal conduct and about foreign interference into a dry legal matter...

Netanyahu obviously knows how to handle Trump:
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... town-to-be
Quote:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday announced that he would soon introduce a resolution to a name a town in the Golan Heights after President Trump.

..."All Israelis were deeply moved when President Trump made his historic decision to recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights," Netanyahu said
Netanyahu won his election after some interesting tactics, like installing cameras at the polling places with a high concentration of Arab voters. The police removed the cameras but by then I assume the intimidation was successful.

_________________

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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Jude
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 23 Apr , 2019 5:21 pm
Aspiring to heresy
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And, in UK news: there's talk of a visit by Trump to the UK in July, and protesters are making plans to resurrect the six-metre-high blimp that shows Trump as a wailing baby in nappies.
Quote:
Last year, the London mayor gave permission for the Trump blimp to fly over the capital in a move that infuriated the president’s supporters.

A spokesman forSadiq Khan hinted that an attempt to relaunch the balloon would be approved. He said: “Any application to fly it on land that the Greater London Authority manages will be judged by the same criteria as last time by GLA officials, the police and the Civil Aviation Authority.”

_________________

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Melkor and Ungoliant in need of some relationship counselling.


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 24 Apr , 2019 1:15 pm
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I've also heard complaints that Trump's last visit cost a fortune in security and no one really wanted him there. Supposedly, local officials don't want him at July's WWII memorial event either but May overruled them - though I don't know if that's accurate or not. I'm not sure if you can disinvite a head of state, though, just because they're a clown, an idiot and a boor.

Maybe it will rain and Trump won't attend. ;)



https://thehill.com/policy/national-sec ... -testimony
Quote:
The White House has told a former official who supervised security clearances not to appear before the House Oversight Committee as part of a sprawling probe into the Trump administration’s security clearance process.

In a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) obtained by The Hill, Michael Purpura, deputy counsel to President Trump, wrote that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had told former White House Personnel Security Director Carl Kline not to appear before the committee because the panel was not allowing a representative of the White House to attend his deposition “in order to preserve and protect Executive Branch confidentiality interests."
Kline was the political appointee Trump put into place when security clearances were being denied by the professionals. And of course he started overruling their decisions.


https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... ing-client
Quote:
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler left a former lobbying client off of his financial disclosure documents, according to a new letter from House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.).....“These documents indicate that you may have improperly omitted Darling from your financial disclosure, and they raise concerns that you may have failed to identify other clients who paid for your services as a lobbyist during the period covered by your disclosure report,” Cummings wrote in the letter, which was also signed by Rep. Harley Rouda (D-Calif.).
The Trump administration certainly seems like a careless bunch. All those Russian contacts some of them failed to disclose, too, before they were reminded and had to amend their forms.



https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... gressional
Quote:
President Trump on Tuesday said he doesn't want current and former White House aides to testify in front of Congress following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

In an exclusive interview with The Washington Post, Trump said complying with further investigations was not necessary after the White House cooperated with Mueller’s investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.
And got results they didn't like. ;)




https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... n-election
Quote:
Former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was warned not to brief President Trump on possible Russian election interference in the 2020 election, according to The New York Times.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney reportedly warned Nielsen not to bring the topic up in front of the president, despite Nielsen's concern that the Russians would attempt to influence another U.S. presidential election. Mulvaney reportedly said it “wasn’t a great subject and should be kept below [the president's] level."

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4402 ... n-election
Quote:
Fox News anchor Shepard Smith on Tuesday denounced White House senior adviser Jared Kushner for downplaying Russian election interference...“Jared Kushner’s diminishment of Russian interference is both disingenuous and deceptive," Smith said on his daily Fox News program. "The attack on our democracy involved much more than the purchase of a few Facebook ads."

"From the Mueller report we now know Russians made contact with multiple members of the Trump campaign, including Jared Kushner, attempting to change American policies and promote Russian objectives," Smith continued, before going on to list many of the details included in special counsel Robert Mueller's report on his investigation into Russian election interference and President Trump.
Noteworthy that this is Fox calling out the Trump administration for its lies.



Hopefully the commanders actually in charge of the military at the border will have the brains and backbone to disregard Trump. If not, he's setting the stage for some real issues.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4403 ... -cover-for
Trump tweet:
Quote:
Mexico’s Soldiers recently pulled guns on our National Guard Soldiers, probably as a diversionary tactic for drug smugglers on the Border. Better not happen again! We are now sending ARMED SOLDIERS to the Border. Mexico is not doing nearly enough in apprehending & returning!
The incident was not a big deal in itself, but certainly illustrates how having a militarized border increases the risk of conflicts. There was a mistake about where US soldiers were - the Mexican soldiers thought they had crossed over into Mexico. The two sides quickly sorted things out and everyone went on their way. Until right wing media got hold of the incident and started making a big fuss about it.

And of course, Dear Leader decided to construct a conspiracy theory out of it - or got one from his questionable (social media?) sources.



https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... pon-of-war
Quote:
The United Nations on Tuesday passed a resolution to combat the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, following a reported U.S. veto threat over a since-removed provision.

...The Trump administration in recent months has opposed U.N. documents that mention sexual or reproductive health, saying that it implies support for abortion.

The veto threat had come despite the resolution having copied language from previous Security Council resolutions on sexual and reproductive rights, ABC News reported.
Not that this resolution seems likely to actually do anything but, seriously, the US threatening to veto a resolution that says rape is wrong? I assume the pro-lifers objected to something that implies a woman doesn't have to carry the child of her rapist to term.

I often think the biggest problem with the UN is that a small group of countries has veto power over things they don't like. Otherwise, everyone else could have just rolled their eyes and passed the resolution.



https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4 ... n-measures
Quote:
A federal judge in Oregon said Tuesday he would block the Trump administration from enforcing a ban on abortion referrals at federally-funded family planning clinics....would grant a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration by Planned Parenthood and the American Medical Association. However, he has not decided whether the decision will apply nationally, according to The Oregonian. T

“Judge McShane got it exactly right when he called the new Title X rule a ‘ham-fisted’ approach to health care," AMA President Barbara McAneny said in a statement. "The judge repeatedly asked how the new gag rule would improve health outcomes. The government was unable to answer."


King Donald strikes again:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... nts-dinner
Quote:
The White House has directed administration officials not to attend the White House Correspondents’ Association's (WHCA) annual dinner this weekend, officials said Tuesday. "The president and members of his administration will not attend the White House Correspondents Dinner this year,” the White House said in a statement.
He made a comment the other day that no one in his administration would disobey him. It was in reference to the Mueller report findings that Trump instructed several people to obstruct justice and they ignored him, but I expect it applies to Trump's attitude in general.



And Trump puts his ignorance on display again:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... reme-court
Quote:
Trump says he would challenge impeachment in Supreme Court
It would be nice to have a president who actually knows what's in the constitution

_________________

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 25 Apr , 2019 5:09 pm
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Expect Trump to starting ranting:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... ords-to-ny
Quote:
Deutsche Bank has reportedly started turning over President Trump's financial documents to the New York state attorney general's office, according to reports.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -challenge
Quote:
President Trump’s attempt to stonewall investigations by House Democrats by preventing former aides such as White House counsel Don McGahn from testifying is an uphill legal battle.

The White House has signaled that it will assert executive privilege to block McGahn and others from testifying.

But Trump allowed McGahn to speak to special counsel Robert Mueller and permitted the release of the special counsel’s redacted report without asserting executive privilege, a decision that could make it hard to justify the new argument in court.

_________________

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 26 Apr , 2019 2:36 pm
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Dear Leader is calling the Mueller report from the US Dept of Justice an attempted coup. This sort of behavior by a president is extraordinary and appalling. The only excuse is if he's no longer sane.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... the-united
Quote:
President Trump blasted special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's election interference Thursday as a "coup." “This was a coup," Trump said on Sean Hannity's Fox News show. "This was an attempted overthrow of the United States government.”

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4 ... d-children
Quote:
A federal judge ruled Thursday that The Trump administration has six months to identify potentially thousands of children officials separated from their families at the country’s southern border.

The government initially said it could take up to two years to identify as many as 47,000 children who were separated from their parents and taken into custody between July 1, 2017 and June 26, 2018.


https://www.newsweek.com/trump-agreed-p ... ea-1405998
Quote:
President Donald Trump approved a $2 million payment to cover the medical care of Otto Warmbier, a then-comatose University of Virginia student jailed in North Korea, according to a new report.

...On Thursday, new information about discussions surrounding Warmbier's return was revealed by The Washington Post's Anna Fifield. Citing two unnamed sources familiar with the matter, Fifield reported that North Korea billed the U.S. $2 million for Warmbier's hospital bill and that Trump himself approved the invoice.

While the bill was sent to the Treasury Department, it could not be confirmed whether or not it was actually paid. White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders said, "We do not comment on hostage negotiations, which is why they have been so successful during this administration."
Trump apparently denied it this morning, but we all know how much the words of a liar are worth.



Edit:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... rms-treaty
Quote:
President Trump on Friday announced he is withdrawing U.S. support for an international arms-trade treaty..Speaking at a National Rifle Association (NRA) convention in Indianapolis, Trump said he would “never” ratify the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty that was signed by former President Obama in 2013.

“Under my administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone,” Trump told the group, which erupted in applause. “We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedoms.” Trump signed paperwork instructing the Senate to halt the ratification process, held up the document as the crowd cheered “USA, USA,” then tossed his pen into the crowd.

...The treaty is designed to regulate the $70 billion international arms trade and prevent conventional arms being used by terrorists, human traffickers and others.
About 100 other countries have already signed and ratified it. Some more have signed but not ratified it.




https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4408 ... der-report
Quote:
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Friday is expected to approve a new policy that would ease restrictions on troops interacting with migrants entering the country, a move that would expand the military's activities at the U.S.–Mexico border, The Washington Post reported. Shanahan will reportedly sign off on a request from the Department of Homeland Security to allow military lawyers, cooks and drivers to help with handling migrants entering the United States.

...Asked last week whether he could rule out that U.S. troops will be involved in the detention of migrants, Shanahan said, “We don't do law enforcement.”
Shanahan sounds somewhat evasive to me. The waiver for military lawyers looks like Trump is planning to use them to decide asylum claims. I doubt they have any expertise in immigration law. And the inclusion of drivers looks like they're going to be involved in detention in some way.
(I have no objections to the previous waiver, which allowed the military to provide emergency medical care. )



Not directly related to Trump - except it makes it even more obvious how complicated the situation is with North Korea and what a fool Trump is to think he can just waltz in and sell Kim Jong Un on a peace plan.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/ ... 50085.html
Quote:
The Kremlin tried hard to present Kim Jong Un's first ever visit to Russia as an historic event...But the summit's presumed importance seemed to fizzle out as it did not produce a deal of any significance for the Korean settlement, and no accords were signed after the talks.

Experts say, however, that the true purpose of Kim's visit to Russia was a chance to leave himself some wiggle room when talks with the US resume - and to use Russia as the bogeyman if US President Donald Trump goes too far with his threats. "This is the breakthrough the [North] Korean side needed to tell the US: 'Look, we have normal ties with Moscow, if something happens, we will run to them for protection, stop waving your fists,'" Dmitry Zhuravlev, director general of the Institute of Regional Issues, a Moscow think-tank, told Al Jazeera.

China is North Korea's main international backer, but Russia has plenty of leverage and interest in propping up Kim's dynasty. ...The nations share a border, and Russia serves as a workplace for at least 10,000 North Korean labour migrants, an important source of hard currency for Pyongyang.

Russia does not want a nuclear disaster next door, but its interest in the disarmament of North Korea is limited; the fall of the Kim dynasty would likely mean that a unified Korea becomes a US ally, and American military bases could appear next to Russia's Pacific provinces

_________________

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 30 Apr , 2019 1:21 am
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https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4412 ... ran-report
Quote:
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis declined to carry out orders from President Trump or otherwise limited his options in various attempts to prevent tensions with North Korea, Iran and Syria from escalating, The New Yorker reported Monday, the latest account of Trump’s own officials trying to check his worst instincts.

..."We prevented a lot of bad things from happening."
Of course, anonymous administration officials already told us this was happening in that unprecedented letter in the New York Times, a long time ago. But Congress seems to have forgotten all about that. And many of them, like Mattis, are now gone. Instead, Trump now has at least some of the sycophants he wants:

For instance, Mulvaney:
https://www.apnews.com/b4a6ecfaed224a5cafdf2e6188a6483f
Quote:
Mulvaney has made clear he believes his job is to manage the staff and not the president, according to current and former officials and people close to him. And he’s OK with that.

Mulvaney doesn’t try to limit whom the president speaks with or curb access to the Oval Office. He just asks that those who talk to Trump fill him in on what was discussed to avoid surprises. While former staffers compare the current atmosphere in the West Wing to the early, chaotic days of the administration, when the Oval Office had the feel of Grand Central Station, Mulvaney understands that’s how Trump likes it.

...Mulvaney appears happy to be promoting Trump’s agenda, even when the president’s policies stand in conflict with ideas that Mulvaney has long championed.

And this interview with Pompeo raised my eyebrows. He certainly doesn't lack arrogance:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... r-at-state
Quote:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cast his first year at Foggy Bottom as imbuing a formerly beleaguered department with “swagger” during a wide-ranging interview with The Hill on Monday. “What I wanted to do is make sure and put diplomacy at the very front of what President Trump was doing,” Pompeo said Monday in the live interview with The Hill’s editor-in-chief, Bob Cusack. “I spent an awful lot of time in this first year making sure that that was the case. We talked about swagger, about being prepared to have the confidence as an American diplomat to know that you represent the greatest nation in the history of civilization...
Yeah, that will go over real well in terms of diplomacy...




https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... on-despite
Quote:
The Interior Department is reviewing permits from companies interested in exploring the coast for potential sources of oil, despite the agency announcing a pause in its offshore drilling plans, Reuters reported Monday.

...Interior did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt last week said pending lawsuits challenging the administration's ability to drill off the Atlantic Coast and near Alaska pushed the agency to back away from the rollout of plans that were expected shortly.
Almost all the state governors along the Atlantic oppose drilling (Maine's didn't but he's gone now and I'm not sure what's happening there.) Rumor has it that plans for drilling off the coast of California will also come out soon.



https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/a ... n-measures
Quote:
Second federal judge blocks Trump abortion measures
Quote:
An Oregon federal judge on Monday issued a national injunction against the Trump administration’s measure cutting off federal funds for family planning clinics that offer abortions or referrals.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Michael McShane called the proposed rule “madness.”

"At worst, it is a ham-fisted approach to health policy that recklessly disregards the health outcomes of women, families, and communities. In the guise of 'program integrity,' the Gag Rule prevents doctors from behaving like informed professionals,” McShane wrote. “It prevents counselors from providing comprehensive counseling. It prevents low-income women from making an informed and independent medical decision.



https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/441 ... -think-its
Quote:
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said Monday she is “not enthused” by a series of controversial past comments from Stephen Moore, President Trump’s nominee for a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve Board....“I think it’s ridiculous.”

Moore’s past writings, along with his qualifications for the position, have been a source of controversy since his nomination was announced.

“In fact, you know, the male needs to be the breadwinner of the family," he reportedly said on C-SPAN in 2000. "One of the reasons you’ve seen the decline of the family — not just in the black community, but also it’s happening now in the white community as well — is because women are more economically self-sufficient.”



btw, Rosenstein has resigned as expected. He seems to see some virtues in Trump that are quite absent from his public persona.
https://thehill.com/policy/national-sec ... r-to-trump
Quote:
“I am grateful to you for the opportunity to serve; for the courtesy and humor you often display in our personal conversations; and for the goals you set in your inaugural address: patriotism, unity, safety, education, and prosperity, because ‘a nation exists to serve its citizens,’” Rosenstein wrote in his resignation letter.
Or maybe he just got so good at the everyone-praise-Trump sessions at Cabinet meetings that he felt he had to add one more when resigning? Because I sure haven't seen any sign that Trump has the least interest in unity or education, in particular. Or, frankly, in serving anyone but himself.

_________________

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 30 Apr , 2019 4:43 pm
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/us/p ... -bank.html
Quote:
Trump Sues Deutsche Bank and Capital One to Block Compliance With Subpoenas
Quote:
The House’s Intelligence and Financial Services Committees issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank... People with knowledge of the investigation said it related to possible money laundering by people in Russia and Eastern Europe.

...The suit appears to be part of an increasingly aggressive counteroffensive by Mr. Trump’s administration and his business empire to thwart attempts by House Democrats to investigate him and his presidency.

...Among the entities that Congress members have sought documents from is Mazars USA, the president’s longtime accounting firm. On April 22, Mr. Trump filed a suit to prevent Mazars from responding to a subpoena from Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

But Deutsche Bank holds one of the biggest troves of documents.

Starting in the late 1990s, it was the only mainstream financial institution willing to consistently do business with Mr. Trump. Other Wall Street banks shunned him after a series of defaults and bankruptcies saddled them with hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/441 ... on-mueller
Quote:
Senate Republicans are beginning to set up a firewall for President Trump against special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, pushing back at a slew of Democratic attacks on the president’s conduct as described in the document.

...The GOP arguments are a departure from some comments made by Republican senators in the days after the Mueller report was released.


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/us/p ... rhood.html
Quote:
The White House is pushing to issue an order that would designate the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization, bringing the weight of American sanctions against a storied and influential Islamist political movement with millions of members across the Middle East, according to officials familiar with the matter.... after a White House visit on April 9 by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, for whom the Brotherhood represents a source of political opposition.

...John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, support the idea, officials said. But the Pentagon, career national security staff, government lawyers and diplomatic officials have voiced legal and policy objections, and have been scrambling to find a more limited step that would satisfy the White House.

As a matter of law, officials have argued that the criteria for designating a terrorist organization are not a good fit for the Muslim Brotherhood, which is less a coherent body than a loose-knit movement with chapters in different countries that either use that moniker or have strong historical ties to it. Several political parties in places like Tunisia and Jordan consider themselves Muslim Brotherhood or have ties to it, but eschew violent extremism.



Note: the following story says it's a coup. But as far as I know, it's still a coup attempt at this point. Possibly a military one, but both sides are claiming they have the military on their side.
https://thehill.com/latino/441303-venez ... iates-coup
Quote:
The Trump administration has thrown its support behind an apparent coup in Venezuela, where supporters of National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó have taken to the streets in an attempt to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro's socialist government.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed support for Guaidó’s efforts on Tuesday morning.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/ ... 35912.html
Quote:
Venezuela in crisis: All the latest updates

Opposition leader Juan Guaido calls for military uprising as government says forces remain loyal.


And it looks like Blackwater might be involved:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/ ... 21696.html
Quote:
Erik Prince - the founder of the controversial private security firm Blackwater and a prominent supporter of US President Donald Trump - has been pushing to deploy a private army to help topple Venezuela's socialist president, Nicholas Maduro, four sources with knowledge of the effort told Reuters.

Over the last several months, the sources said, Prince has sought investment and political support for such an operation from influential Trump supporters and wealthy Venezuelan exiles.
I wouldn't be surprised if Trump has gotten us involved in this mess.

_________________

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 01 May , 2019 1:23 pm
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https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/441 ... separation
Quote:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) Tuesday requesting an investigation into a report that the agency monitored protests against the Trump administration’s policy of separating families at the border.

The request comes after The Intercept reported Monday that that the Virginia-based firm LookingGlass Cyber Solutions gathered information on over 600 demonstrations against the White House’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy last June and handed over detailed information to DHS officials.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... tus-report
Quote:
The Trump administration is set to begin using DNA testing to verify whether migrants travelling as families are in fact related in an effort to target human trafficking at the border.
At least they're getting better at coming up with socially acceptable justifications.




I don't like Maduro (who does?) and would like to see him gone, but it's pretty obvious that the Trump administration has something going on in Venezuela and that may well backfire. And while I would like to see free elections, I'm pretty sure Bolton and company's version of free elections is "as long as it isn't a socialist." Given that many Venezuelans still seem to support socialism while not liking Maduro, that could be a problem.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... s-protests
Quote:
“It’s a very delicate moment,” Bolton said. “I want to stress again that the president wants to see a peaceful transfer of power from Maduro to Guaidó. The possibility still exists if enough figures depart from the regime and support the opposition and that’s what we’d like to see.”

Asked whether the administration was providing any other support other than words, Bolton replied that “we are providing support in a variety of respects,” including humanitarian assistance and “a lot of others things, some of which I’m not going to talk about.”

Bolton also said the uprising was “clearly not a coup.”

“We recognize Juan Guaidó as the legitimate interim president of Venezuela. And just as it's not a coup when the president of the United States gives an order to the Department of Defense, it's not a coup for Juan Guaidó to try and take command of the Venezuelan military.”

Maduro supporters, meanwhile, have likened the U.S.-backed uprising to 2002's coup against then-President Hugo Chávez, which ultimately helped strengthen the Bolivarian government.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/ ... 35912.html
Quote:
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was scheduled to speak with his Russian counterpart on Wednesday, White House national security adviser John Bolton said in television interviews.Bolton would not elaborate on what the United States knew about Russian involvement affecting Maduro's plans, but he made clear Moscow's interference was not welcome.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the administration of President Donald Trump was prepared to take military action to stem the crisis in Venezuela."The president has been crystal clear and incredibly consistent. Military action is possible. If that's what's required, that's what the United States will do," Pompeo said on Fox Business Network.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 93886.html
Quote:
Donald Trump has threatened Cuba with the a “full and complete embargo” over its support for Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, a shuddering escalation of tensions that called to mind the Cold War.

On a day that saw violence erupt on the streets of Caracas as opposition leader Juan Guaido launched his latest bid to oust Mr Maduro, Mr Trump took to social media to heap new pressure on the Venezuelan president and his supporters in Havana.
This article also contains one of the better summaries of the situation.



More of Netanyahu knowing how to please Trump:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/planned-w ... -minister/
Quote:
A controversial plan to place a train station in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City and whisk tourists from Ben-Gurion Airport to the Western Wall may have a controversial name attached to it: Donald Trump.

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz said a planned train station would be named after US President Donald Trump, who earlier this month recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and vowed to move the US embassy to the city.


Edit:
https://thehill.com/policy/national-sec ... er-to-barr
Quote:
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday released the letter special counsel Robert Mueller sent to Attorney General William Barr expressing frustration with Barr's summary of Mueller's Russia investigation.

"The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office's work and conclusions," reads the letter signed by Mueller. "There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations."
https://thehill.com/policy/national-sec ... hats-not-a
Quote:
Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday asserted that it's "not a crime" for President Trump to ask an aide to lie for him, and argued there is a difference between asking someone to fire special counsel Robert Mueller versus having him removed based on a conflict of interest.



https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -clearance
Quote:
The White House on Wednesday rejected a request for documents from the House Oversight and Reform Committee as part of its probe into the handling of security clearances.

...The Oversight and Reform Committee is conducting an investigation into the White House's handling of security clearances for administration officials. A whistleblower told the panel the White House intervened to give high-level clearances to 25 people who had previously been denied them.

The White House had previously criticized the probe, with press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders calling it "dangerous” and “shameful."
I'd say those words are more applicable to her own behavior.


https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... on-mueller
Quote:
Five takeaways from Barr's testimony on Mueller
Quote:
It wasn’t only the contacts with Mueller that caused the attorney general problems. His own answers at times undercut his credibility. Although he never lost his cool under aggressive questioning from the committee’s Democrats, he often split hairs.

...in aggregate, his performance created the impression of a man leaning on semantics and the finest of lawyerly distinctions to protect his boss, the president.

...The attorney general also struggled to answer [Kamala] Harris’s question about whether Trump or others at the White House had “asked or suggested” that he open an investigation into anyone. A hesitant Barr said, “I’m trying to grapple with the word ‘suggest.’ ” He never gave an unequivocal answer.

...The attorney general can take solace from the fact there is no sign at all that Republicans are weakening in their support for him. ...

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4416 ... ony-is-off
Quote:
Attorney General William Barr is refusing to testify before the House on Thursday, arguing Democrats have put "unprecedented" conditions on his testimony. The fight sets up a major clash between Barr and Democrats in control of the House Judiciary Committee, who have threatened to subpoena the attorney general to compel his testimony.
Meanwhile, Lindsay Graham is refusing to ask Mueller to testify in the Senate.

One of the most curious things is that Lindsay Graham (?) read out some criticisms of Trump by former FBI agents, such as "He's a f.... idiot." And the GOP is very concerned about whether these agents were partisan in voicing their opinions. But they don't seem the least bit concerned that FBI agents, who tend not to question those in authority, former members of Trump's administration (Tillerson, Kelly) and many other people have this opinion of Trump and are concerned about what he will do. It's the most bizarre sort of obstinate blindness from Congress that I have seen in my lifetime.

_________________

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 02 May , 2019 5:06 pm
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https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4417 ... r-for-barr
Quote:
Cable news outlets opted Thursday to show an empty chair where Attorney General William Barr would have sat for the morning's House Judiciary Committee hearing.

CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all featured split-screens of Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and the empty chair that Democrats had set aside for Barr despite the announcement Wednesday night that he would not appear. Barr refused to appear at the hearing after Democrats insisted that staff attorneys be allowed to ask the attorney general questions.
I expect he was afraid he couldn't weasel out of things and split hairs with a trained attorney, like he could with most members of Congress (most of whom are very poor questioners, IMO, and spend most of their time grandstanding). Barr already fared poorly with Kamala Harris's questioning.


https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ic/588574/
Quote:
I was willing to give Bill Barr a chance. Consider me burned.

When Barr was nominated, I wrote a cautious piece for this magazine declining to give him “a character reference” and acknowledging “legitimate reasons to be concerned about [his] nomination,” but nonetheless concluding that “I suspect that he is likely as good as we’re going to get. And he might well be good enough. Because most of all, what the department needs right now is honest leadership that will insulate it from the predations of the president.”

When he wrote his first letter to Congress announcing the principal conclusions of the Mueller report, I wrote another piece saying, “For the next two weeks, let’s give Attorney General William Barr the benefit of the doubt”...

I took a lot of criticism for these pieces...

Barr has now acted, and we can now evaluate his actual, rather than his hypothesized, performance.

It has been catastrophic. Not in my memory has a sitting attorney general more diminished the credibility of his department on any subject....
IMO, this is the important part. And I agree with him completely (but the whole article is worth reading):
Quote:
Where Barr has utterly failed... is in providing “honest leadership that insulates [the department] from the predations of the president.” ...

....The mischaracterizations began in his first letter. They got worse during his press conference the morning he released the document. And they grew worse still yesterday in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee....

Barr did not lie in any of these statements. ....But it is possible to mislead without lying. One can be dishonest before Congress without perjury. And one can convey sweeping untruths without substantial factual misstatement. This is what Barr has been doing since that first letter. ....




https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4 ... -obamacare
Quote:
The Justice Department on Wednesday made its first full argument in federal court that the Affordable Care Act in its entirety “should not be allowed to remain in effect,” according to CNN.

In the filing in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Assistant Attorney General Joseph Hunt reportedly said the Trump administration has abandoned its earlier position that parts of the law could remain in effect even if its individual mandate were thrown out.

...The government wants the court to strike down the Affordable Care Act’s “guaranteed issue” and “community rating” provisions, which prevent coverage discrimination based on preexisting conditions, as well as provisions unrelated to the individual mandate, such as Medicaid eligibility expansion. ...





https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4417 ... ate-accord
Quote:
House Democrats passed the first climate bill in nearly a decade Thursday in what they are labeling the “first step” in building a strategy to fight global warming. The House voted 231-190 to pass the Climate Action Now Act, which seeks to block the Trump administration from exiting the Obama-era Paris climate agreement, among other actions. Three Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the measure...
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/441 ... from-paris
Quote:
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday that the Senate will not take up a House bill that would force President Trump to keep the U.S. in the Paris climate agreement.


https://thehill.com/latino/441810-asylu ... -to-mexico
Quote:
Asylum officers say they were not properly trained under new Trump administration protocols that send some asylum seekers to Mexico while their cases are processed, and that higher-ups often overrule findings that migrants should not be sent to Mexico, according to Vox....

https://thehill.com/latino/441727-trump ... mails-show
Quote:
Trump administration officials privately acknowledged that they had no way to reunite thousands of separated immigrant parents and children, according to emails published by NBC News on Wednesday.

"n short, no, we do not have any linkages from parents to [children], save for a handful," a Health and Human Services (HHS) official told a top official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 23, 2018. "We have a list of parent alien numbers but no way to link them to children."



https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... er-in-2017
Quote:
At least seven foreign governments reportedly rented space in Trump World Tower in New York in 2017 without congressional approval....

While the 90-story skyscraper has rented to diplomats and foreign officials for years, some legal experts said failing to obtain congressional approval now that Trump is president raises issues under the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, which bans U.S. officials from accepting unapproved gifts or payments from foreign governments.




https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... s-security
Quote:
The White House official responsible for security clearances in the first two years of President Trump's tenure acknowledged to a House panel Wednesday that he had issued clearances despite concerns from subordinates, according to Politico.

Former White House personnel security director Carl Kline told the House Oversight and Reform Committee that he had overruled lower-level employees’ recommendations on issuing clearances but said he had no regrets and denied being pressured by others in the White House....


EDIT to add related story:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4418 ... ner-ivanka
Quote:
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) says the White House prevented a former official from answering questions about the security clearances of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump during a closed-door interview this week.

“They wouldn’t touch it,” Cummings told reporters on Thursday. “And that’s one of the reasons we were so concerned about having the White House counsel there. Whenever there was any mention of Ivanka or any mention of Mr. Kushner, he shut him down.”




https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4 ... for-health
Quote:
A policy announced Thursday would finalize broad rules to protect health workers and institutions from having to violate their religious or moral beliefs by participating in abortions, providing contraception, sterilization, or other procedures....

The rules also align with the new mission statement of the Department of Health and Human Services’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which was revised this week to emphasize a focus on protecting “conscience and religious freedom.”...
So now we'll have to interview our physicians and pharmacists to see what their religious beliefs are, just in case they're morally opposed to contraception? And what about people in rural areas who may have a very limited choice of providers?

This is ridiculous. No one forced these people choose a career where they might have to give someone a prescription for contraceptives or perform sterilization.



https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... il/588508/
Quote:
Pay Attention to What the U.S. Is Doing to Iran

The Trump administration keeps amping up its pressure campaign against Iran.
Quote:
Iran is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world. The United States will on Thursday go one severe step further toward strangling the country’s oil-dependent economy. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal a year ago—having called it “horrible,” “disastrous,” “incompetently negotiated,” and “laughable” at various points. Ever since, the administration has vowed to drive Iran’s oil exports, which earlier this month were about a million barrels a day, to zero. In pursuit of that goal, U.S. officials have threatened that those still importing Iranian oil after Thursday will face potential sanctions of their own.

Here are five things to know about what’s happening, why it’s happening now, and what’s next.
Quote:
...The U.S. is pursuing what it calls a “maximum pressure” campaign against the Iranian government, which officials say is aimed at changing the regime’s behavior—including its support for terrorist proxies, its threats to neighbors who are also U.S. allies, its missile development, and so on. State Department officials insist that this is not a policy of regime change, though National Security Adviser John Bolton has advocated that policy outside of government...


https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opini ... 36682.html
Quote:
Arrogance, fanaticism and the prospect of a US-Iranian war

Can a fourth Gulf War be prevented?
It's not Trump and his family dynasty who will pay if Trump, Bolton and Pompeo get us into another war (or two or three). It's us.



Edit: The Trump administration has finalized the removal of the restrictions that were intended to help prevent another disaster like Deepwater Horizon.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... fety-rules
Quote:
The Trump administration on Thursday announced final plans to ease oil and gas drilling rules that were originally established as a response to the deadly 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The move will remove some of the safety mandates placed on the oil and gas industry under former President Obama, which industry members argued were too burdensome and cost prohibitive.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced the rule revision in Port Fourchon, La., a major location for offshore drilling near the Gulf of Mexico.

_________________

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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