Everyone giving money to this campaign are complete idiots. Even though the creator has good intentions (regardless of where you stand on this issue, at least he is attempting to take action in something he believes in), he has no way to make sure the money raised is actually going to go to constructing the wall and whoever he hands it off to in this corrupt administration Expect it to vanish before the first steel slab gets made.
Top it off, if those people just donated that money to their local food bank this time of year, they’d be helping a lot of people. $4.5 million so far. Flabbergasted
~
On Syria:
Trump’s stance has always been to pull out. Only time will tell if it is as big as a blunder as everyone claims it’ll be.
But
The timing was all political and it is perceived as if it was dictated by Turkey and Russia.
He was looking for an easy win at the end of the year and this move was it.
Let's get two things straight about the wall: First, what is the now retroactively standard line from ANY Trump supporter that the new trade deal with Mexico (which hasn't even been ratified by Congress yet) has "paid" for it already, as if this was always the argument. #1.) This was never the argument until it became necessary for it to become the argument and #2.) This is in NO way how any of this works. Any hypothetical monetary gain from the revised NA Trade deal is not money that flows directly into the frickin' US Treasury, spending from which is controlled by Congress.
Secondly, the same can be said for this GoFundMe campaign. Again, having a fundraiser and turning in the money to cover the cost of something that hasn't been voted on or had spending approved for it by Congress is, also, NOT how any of this works.
For instance, someone can post-date a check stipulating it only be cashed on or after a certain date, or write a stipulation in the note section saying it HAS to be used for a certain purpose. But guess what?? Both of those notations are completely meaningless. If a person has possession of a check you wrote out to them, the bank will cash it REGARDLESS of what the date written on it is, or what caveats you wrote on the front. People still do so, but it's a complete myth that they serve any actual legal or binding function. The fact is, you wrote them a check, and they can get the money and do whatever they want with it, on whatever day they decide to cash it. So if this GoFundMe campaign wants to turn over a 3-5 million dollar check to the IRS, they are free to do so, but no matter how many times they mention it or write it on the dotted line, they CANNOT make sure it pays for the wall.
Last night the far-right (namely FOX News and Ann Coulter) ripped into Trump about caving on the wall funding. McConnell and Ryan were 100% sure they had a continuing resolution. So it now appears that the last act of this utterly incompetent shit-show of total Republican governance the last two years is going to be a totally self-inflicted government shutdown. Trump is possibly going to shutdown the government because FOX News was pissed at him:
Apparently Rush Limbaugh just said on his radio show that Trump assured him PERSONALLY that he is shutting the government down if he doesn't get wall funding. The country is being run by the absolute fringes of the right-wing echo sphere. A Quinnipiac poll on a government shutdown to secure funding for the wall done in the last 3 days has it polling at 34% approval and 62% disapproval.
I'd like to point out that Trump's weight is really only material because it speaks to his bottomless vanity (and maybe self-loathing). But I would venture to guess that somewhere along the line, MOST of us struggle with weight at some point in our lives going one way or the other, and if you haven't yet, it's likely you will eventually. Trump doesn't get a pass because he has personally attacked the appearance of others (almost always women by the way), but in general, it strikes me as a bit distasteful to call someone out for weighing too much at any given time. But Trump does sort of deserve it based on his past statements about females he was mad at.
Calling Rosie O'Donnell a pig. Essentially calling Carly Fiorina ugly during a debate. Making insinuations that Megyn Kelly was on her period when she asked him a tough question during a debate. Insinuating MSNBC host Mika Brezinski had a botched plastic surgery. Berating a winner of the Miss Universe title for gaining a couple of pounds. Yeah, in typing this out, I almost want to amend my previous statement entirely. If one person deserves to be mercilessly mocked about their appearance, that person would be Donald Trump. I had a tinge of empathy for the guy for about 2 minutes and then realized by going back in my memory bank that yeah, even on this issue, he is a total pile of human garbage. Oh.....and of course the standard chestnut about one of his sexual assault accusers, where a day after she came out with her story he made it very clear at a rally he would have never sexually assaulted her because she was too ugly. And calling the porn star HE came on to for sex a horse-face. I'm gonna just stop now because this could probably go on for another 2 or 3 paragraphs.
Pretty much. Let's face it, if he wasn't rich, no woman would want to touch him. But money attracts some, and, if, as it seems like, he might lose everything after all the court cases against him, I doubt he'll ever have sex again. I won't say, "Unless it's with a guy named Bubba..." Oh, darn. I just did.
Mattis, the last person in this Administration anyone should have had even a scintilla of respect for, is now leaving in February. It's impossible not to infer that this is a direct result of Trump's out of nowhere decision in regards to Syria. There are now no adults in the room at all. It's just his children and syncophants who remain or will be put up for any new posts.
The market dropped almost another 500 points today. The government is on the verge of a shutdown over a wall the vast majority of the country has no interest in paying for. The Commander in Chief (whether the decision itself is positive or negative) is making military decisions based on day to day domestic political concerns (that is the most generous view) or just on his mood at any given hour, and his only sane adviser who has any respectability is (I would have to assume) leaving because he can't take it anymore. Meanwhile, the deluge of criminal acts, indictments of associates, and revelations of almost unfathomable levels of corruption at every level continue to drip out day after day after day. If this isn't a sign of the wheels falling off the wagon, I don't know what is. Oh, and the new new nominee for Attorney General had a memo revealed that explicitly states his opposition to Trump being questioned by Mueller:
We are going to have to put a stop to this sooner than later. None of this is remotely close to normal. Not even your least favorite Republican or Democrat (depending on what side of the aisle you come down on) comes anywhere near this level of dysfunction, chaos, subversion of the rule of law, and corruption. We couldn't have possibly made a bigger mistake than putting this guy into office. It has to be corrected or this entire thing is going to fall apart.
Pentagon chief Mattis quits, citing policy differences with Trump
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-says-defense-secretary-mattis-leaving-end-february-223120592.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general who was known as a stabilizing force in President Donald Trump's Cabinet, will leave his job at the end of February, Trump said in a tweet on Thursday. His departure had been anticipated since Trump announced on Wednesday that he was withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria despite opposition from U.S. allies and top U.S. military officials. Mattis said in his resignation letter that he was stepping down so Trump could have a defense chief whose views align more closely with his own. Trump said he would nominate a successor to Mattis shortly. Mattis joins a long list of former Trump administration senior figures who have either quit or been removed, some unceremoniously like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who Trump fired via Twitter in March. Trump's White House has had the highest turnover of senior-level staff of the past five presidents, according to the Brookings Institution think tank. Speculation that Mattis might not last long in his post grew in October when Trump said in a CBS interview that the general was "sort of a Democrat" and might be leaving.
Russians infiltrated U.S. Treasury in order to obtain info on Clinton allies, Jewish organizations
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/20/1820560/-Russians-infiltrated-U-S-Treasury-in-order-to-obtain-info-on-Clinton-allies-Jewish-organizations?detail=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2wj8GYsqTE6Kl6SW44dLkim2a6jweAxaqcVoTI2-tG2is4P65X_N5Bleo Buzzfeed has published an absolute blockbuster of a report: that Russia cultivated relationships with U.S. Treasury Department employees under a program designed to share information about ISIS funding. Using private Gmail and Hotmail accounts, the Russian financial crimes agency created a backchannel with some U.S. Treasury Department officials—and were able to get private financial information, including Social Security numbers of American citizens, in addition to sensitive financial information on Russian dissidents. Here’s just a bit of the extensive reporting from Buzzfeed: Russia’s financial crimes agency, whose second-in-command is a former KGB officer and schoolmate of President Vladimir Putin, also asked the Americans for documents on executives from two prominent Jewish groups, the Anti-Defamation League and the National Council of Jewish Women, as well as Kremlin opponents living abroad in London and Kiev. In an astonishing departure from protocol, documents show that at the same time the requests were being made, Treasury officials were using their government email accounts to send messages back and forth with a network of private Hotmail and Gmail accounts set up by the Russians, rather than communicating through the secure network usually used to exchange information with other countries. OUTRAGEOUS! Did employees of the U.S. Treasury really turn over information on prominent Jewish citizens and organizations to Russia? Hold on, folks, because that’s not all: Most startlingly, Russia requested sensitive documents on Dirk, Edward, and Daniel Ziff, billionaire investors who had run afoul of the Kremlin. That request was made weeks before a Russian lawyer showed up at Trump Tower offering top campaign aides “dirt” on Hillary Clinton — including her supposed connection to the Ziff brothers. So, not just Trump is a traitor!
Alot of people are comparing this Syria situation to Obama and Iraq. Except it isn't even remotely the same. There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to pull troops out of Syria. There was certainly nothing wrong with Obama wanting to pull out of Iraq when it is what he ran on. But Obama did not walk into the Oval Office one day and just say "get them all out of there now". It was a long, complicated process that inevitably required much work by people in the Department of Defense and State. What Trump seems to have done here is blindsided everyone in his Administration. No one seems to have even known this was coming. Now we are hearing about a total pullback in Afghanistan as well. Again, not a problem on it's face. But again, everyone is completely blindsided because at this point he just seems to be pulling these decisions out of his ass to influence the news cycle.
Whatever I think of our involvement in the Middle East, there are two things that really DO bother me about this Syria situation. #1 is that we have essentially just signed the death warrant of countless Kurds who were fighting on our side, just like George H. W. Bush did in '91. We convince them to fight with us, bail on them after they do so, and then they get slaughtered. This time, it is likely Turkey and Erdogan who are going to do so. Which brings up point #2, which may have seemed far-fetched even a year ago. But at this point I can't possibly ignore the likelihood that Trump is now just essentially taking orders from authoritarian monsters like Putin and Erdogan and not only ceding everything to them, but may actually just be acting on what they tell him they want. In fact, I find it highly likely that this is exactly what is happening. There is no reason not to think so at this late date knowing what we now know. I don't even agree remotely with General Mattis on foreign policy, but his resignation letter is basically a backhanded way of telling the country "something is deeply wrong here, pay attention".
CNN National Security Reporter Ryan Browne posted this on Twitter a few minutes ago:
Defense officials tell me Mattis went to the White House to discuss Syria & that he was livid after reading reports that Turkey's Defense Minister threatened to kill US-backed Kurds & put them in ditches once the US withdrew. He was incensed at this notion of betrayal of an ally.
Yep. And this just feeds into a non-stop parade of reasons absolutely NO ONE in the world can trust us anymore. Not to live up to our end of the Iran deal, not to stick by the Paris Climate Deal, and not to not leave a group of people we have already f'd over in the past to be slaughtered by Turkish troops, which they are basically promising to do.
Again, withdraw the troops if need be, but not on some spur of the moment, half-ass decision you communicated with no one before the last 48 hours. Also, if Trump thinks this is some how going to shore up his base, he is seriously miscalculating how the Republican base feels about foreign intervention (hint, they cheered it on for 8 long years during Bush). The left isn't going to rally to his cause because he is being so fundamentally irresponsible about how he is going about it and because they suspect he is taking orders from foreign dictators. And the right (including nearly every Republican Senator not named Rand Paul) is going to raise holy hell over abandoning the missions. There are ways to do this responsibly. This is not one of them.
Trump's making an extraordinary effort to escape accountability for his unconstitutional profits
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/18/1819952/-Trump-s-making-an-extraordinary-effort-to-escape-accountability-for-his-unconstitutional-profits?detail=emaildkre Trump has lost all the emoluments cases against him so far. But he continues to fight. Trump concedes there’s never been a proceeding of this nature under the emoluments clauses, but then insists that this case involves a “controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion.” A difference of opinion requires divergent strains of precedent or some potential conflict among rulings. Here, as Trump acknowledged, there’s no precedent at all to wield against the district court. The only precedent that exists kneecaps Trump’s outrageous legal maneuver. In 2004, in a case involving the Bush administration (Cheney v. US Dist. Court for D.C.), the Supreme Court slapped back a mandamus challenge quite similar to Trump’s, in so doing affirming a Nixon-era SCOTUS decision. Even where the court’s granted permission for “overly broad” discovery, it’s on the defendant—even when the defendant is POTUS—to object to specific elements of discovery as, for example, violative of executive privilege.
Another Canadian was arrested in China, this time a teacher who has been alleged to have been working illegally there. These charges against Meng better stick in the U.S.
~
I still stand by my claim that the only reason why Trump wants a government shutdown is so that he can't be impeached. He's not signing anything under Mueller is silenced. The wall is just an excuse, although I am curious who in the Steel industry has him by the balls as well.
I actually doubt Trump had anything to do with this one. This particular article is a little sensationalized. It relates more to a DOD policy. This Washington Post article is a little more sober. I don't really have a problem with them not deploying them, but they should have been reassigned to desk jobs if that was the case. The problem here is that they were kicked out, which IS totally unreasonable. But this isn't like when Trump called for a total ban on transgender troops. There is no way he was personally signing off on this. For one thing, he's too lazy to get into that kind of minutia. Regardless, now that Mattis is leaving, the lawsuit may have to hold until the new Secretary of Defense (and who the hell is going to take THAT job at this point) will be at the center of it:
So, as it turns out (surprising no sentient human being) Matt Whitaker taking over as acting AG is exactly what we thought he was: Trump's plant inside the Justice Department to try to derail the investigation. From Buzzfeed:
Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker's "decision not to recuse himself from the Special Counsel's investigation" was made against the advice he was given by Justice Department ethics officials, Senate leaders were informed on Thursday.
The Department of Justice's senior career ethics official told the senior staff of the Justice Department that ethics officials "would advise" that Whitaker recuse himself if asked, the letter obtained by BuzzFeed News detailed.
Specifically, the ethics official advised that Whitaker's oversight of the special counsel's investigation could "raise an appearance-of-impartiality issue" due to his past comments critical of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
Whitaker was informed of that view, but nonetheless decided not to recuse himself, the letter from Stephen Boyd, the assistant attorney general for DOJ's Office of Legislative Affairs, stated.
And as I mentioned before, Trump's long-term pick wrote a memo detailing why the President should not be subject to questioning on obstruction. But the amazing thing about that story is that no one asked him to write a memo about it. It was a completely unsolicited opinion that he basically sent to the White House like it was a job application. We have LONG known that Trump view the office of the Attorney General as his own personal lawyer to shield him against criminal and political liability. Jeff Sessions, for all his horrendous faults, refused to be that man. Now he has an acting AG and a nominee for a permanent position who not only don't have a problem taking on that roll, they seem to have been actively seeking to attain it.
Although it's already been covered I will say I was struck by the reasons for Mattis' resignation. He wrote in his resignation letter he believed that allies should be treated with respect and that America should support a common defense. He went on to say: "Because you have the right to have a secretary of defence whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down".
I know it's stating the obvious, but it's really not normal to have a president who believes that allies should not be treated with respect - nor is it the case here that departing from the normal is a good idea.
As an aside I was surprised to see in the letter the spelling of "defence". That's not the official spelling of his title and the use of "s" rather than "c" seems to be universal in the US. When writing in this Forum I use US spellings (even though they do rather grate on my sensibilities ), so it seems odd that Mattis did not. I guess that he must have been habituated in the other direction as a result of dealing so much with other countries using the variant spelling ...
Matthew Whitaker, Trump's attorney general, has failed to recuse himself from supervising the Mueller probe. A Trump loyalist and Mueller critic has seen fit to supervise the very investigation delving into the Trump administration's activities during and after the 2016 campaign.
There's more.
Separately, the Justice Department provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee late on Wednesday a package of Mr. Barr’s writings and speeches. The documents included a 19-page, apparently unsolicited memo Mr. Barr sent to senior department officials in June in which he sharply criticized Mr. Mueller’s focus on whether Mr. Trump had obstructed justice.
The "unsolicited" part is what really concerns me. Senator Dianne Feinstein put it better than I could:
We need answers as to why Barr proactively drafted this memo and then shared it with the deputy attorney general and President Trump’s lawyers. There’s no reason for a lawyer in private practice to do this unless he was attempting to curry favor with President Trump and convey that he would protect the president.
It seems fairly clear to me. Whitaker knew that Trump wanted a different attorney general, so he took aim at the position and managed to secure it for himself once Sessions was gone by getting a simple message to Trump's team:
"If you make me attorney general, I will not recuse myself--I will constrain the Mueller investigation for you."
Again, we see this insidious pattern where Trump attempts to sabotage investigations into his conduct, and when that alienates honorable people and pushes them away, corrupt people and opportunists slip in to fill their place. This is worse than just forcing his associates to sign a series of non-disclosure agreements to forcibly prevent them from speaking up about him; he's directly trying to silence law enforcement itself.
We're seeing the strength of our institutions being tested. We're seeing a president repeatedly using his executive powers to shield himself from federal investigators, and he can. What kind of precedent does that set, that a president can manipulate law enforcement to protect himself and get away with it? That does nothing but give cover to corrupt people who want to abuse their power to shield themselves from the law.
Even if you have every sympathy for Trump, the fact that he is free to thwart federal investigators is indefensible. No one, however innocent or guilty, should be able to sabotage law enforcement.
Although it's already been covered I will say I was struck by the reasons for Mattis' resignation. He wrote in his resignation letter he believed that allies should be treated with respect and that America should support a common defense. He went on to say: "Because you have the right to have a secretary of defence whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down".
I know it's stating the obvious, but it's really not normal to have a president who believes that allies should not be treated with respect - nor is it the case here that departing from the normal is a good idea.
As an aside I was surprised to see in the letter the spelling of "defence". That's not the official spelling of his title and the use of "s" rather than "c" seems to be universal in the US. When writing in this Forum I use US spellings (even though they do rather grate on my sensibilities ), so it seems odd that Mattis did not. I guess that he must have been habituated in the other direction as a result of dealing so much with other countries using the variant spelling ...
It really does seem that the thing that pushed Mattis over the edge was the abandoning of the Kurdish forces and this general sense that the ground is being purposefully (or, at best, negligently) ceded to authoritarian rulers like Putin and Erdogan. Again, by all means, draw down in Syria and Afghanistan. But at the very least we owed it to the Kurds to implement some kind of plan so they aren't simply sitting there as cannon fodder for a Turkish military that has (in the words of their own Defense Minister) vowed to slaughter them.
Competition between sellers on Amazon appears to be incredibly cutthroat, devious, and mostly lawless. There's a long article about the various scams that Amazon sellers use to sabotage the accounts of their competitors on Amazon, using methods as diverse as framing people for making fake reviews, buying Google ads for their competitors with irrelevant links to manipulate a ratio in Amazon's algorithms, and even gaining partial access to someone's account to damage its reputation. Amazon is a profitable marketplace for people who know how to work the system, but the most successful accounts are also the first to be targeted by scammers who want to bump their own products further up on the search results by removing the competition.
Amazon appears to be extremely ineffectual or simply uninterested in combating the problem; the appeals system is incredibly opaque (Amazon won't even tell you what rule you allegedly broke) and even if you've been framed for some wrongdoing, the only way out is to issue a false confession, since the appeals system treats all accused parties as guilty. Even the people running the appeals system are incentivized to be unforgiving; they get heavily penalized if they restore an account that gets in trouble later on.
It sounds like making money on Amazon is less about providing good products at low prices, and more about manipulating Amazon's algorithms and sabotaging your competitors.
Competition between sellers on Amazon appears to be incredibly cutthroat, devious, and mostly lawless. There's a long article about the various scams that Amazon sellers use to sabotage the accounts of their competitors on Amazon, using methods as diverse as framing people for making fake reviews, buying Google ads for their competitors with irrelevant links to manipulate a ratio in Amazon's algorithms, and even gaining partial access to someone's account to damage its reputation. Amazon is a profitable marketplace for people who know how to work the system, but the most successful accounts are also the first to be targeted by scammers who want to bump their own products further up on the search results by removing the competition.
Amazon appears to be extremely ineffectual or simply uninterested in combating the problem; the appeals system is incredibly opaque (Amazon won't even tell you what rule you allegedly broke) and even if you've been framed for some wrongdoing, the only way out is to issue a false confession, since the appeals system treats all accused parties as guilty. Even the people running the appeals system are incentivized to be unforgiving; they get heavily penalized if they restore an account that gets in trouble later on.
It sounds like making money on Amazon is less about providing good products at low prices, and more about manipulating Amazon's algorithms and sabotaging your competitors.
E-Bay has some of the same issues. I have a buddy who's into buying & selling comics on e-Bay and he tells me all the time how bogus their system is. In this case it's about trolls and how the customer is always right in the eyes of e-Bay. It sounds good on paper but he tells me that some of the customers give bad feedback regardless of him bending over backward to satisfy their demands. It's impossible to get rid of the bad feedback even if every other customer is completely satisfied. Keep that in mind when you're looking at the comments. Some people get some kind of sick satisfaction out of destroying reputations and there aren't any real safeguards against them. In this case 'the customer is always right' is just an excuse for laziness...
Well all three (four if you include Corker) are out the door already or very soon. And what do you know he's right it is chaos with more chaos on the horizon.
Immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are fleeing disastrous policies from the war on drugs. They are escaping poverty. They are fleeing oppressive right wing governments, gangs and violence that have been ruining their lives supported by US policies. A wall won't change those facts.
The wall is again another con from Donald Trump. Surprise right. It's a simple solution to a complex problem. At it's base it's the same lie that the traveling salesman told people in the 1800s when he rolled into town and sold magic tonic water would cure every illness. You'd get the water, he'd leave town and surprise it didn't work.
There may not be a war on Christmas but belligerent atheists being rewarded with cash is pretty shocking to me. It's just too bad a child has to be dragged through this turmoil. Seriously, a father who mimics Nazi salutes is rewarded? Not only that, these parents want ornaments in a friggin' daycare center that openly mock religion? What a couple of assholes!
There may not be a war on Christmas but belligerent atheists being rewarded with cash is pretty shocking to me. It's just too bad a child has to be dragged through this turmoil. Seriously, a father who mimics Nazi salutes is rewarded? Not only that, these parents want ornaments in a friggin' daycare center that openly mock religion? What a couple of assholes!
Based on the article, the parents suggested those ornaments sarcastically via email. It was an "If pro-religious symbols are okay, then wouldn't you also support anti-religious symbols?" kind of a thing, the presumed answer being "no." As for the "Nazi salutes" thing, that was also a sarcastic act of mockery during a tense argument in person. The father seems to be a bit of a jerk when it comes to religion, but the tribunal wasn't rewarding him for that--in fact, it complained about his behavior.
The money was not given because the parents complained about religion. It was compensation for their daughter being barred from school.
Comments
https://ca.gofundme.com/TheTrumpWall
Everyone giving money to this campaign are complete idiots. Even though the creator has good intentions (regardless of where you stand on this issue, at least he is attempting to take action in something he believes in), he has no way to make sure the money raised is actually going to go to constructing the wall and whoever he hands it off to in this corrupt administration Expect it to vanish before the first steel slab gets made.
Top it off, if those people just donated that money to their local food bank this time of year, they’d be helping a lot of people. $4.5 million so far. Flabbergasted
~
On Syria:
Trump’s stance has always been to pull out. Only time will tell if it is as big as a blunder as everyone claims it’ll be.
But
The timing was all political and it is perceived as if it was dictated by Turkey and Russia.
He was looking for an easy win at the end of the year and this move was it.
Secondly, the same can be said for this GoFundMe campaign. Again, having a fundraiser and turning in the money to cover the cost of something that hasn't been voted on or had spending approved for it by Congress is, also, NOT how any of this works.
For instance, someone can post-date a check stipulating it only be cashed on or after a certain date, or write a stipulation in the note section saying it HAS to be used for a certain purpose. But guess what?? Both of those notations are completely meaningless. If a person has possession of a check you wrote out to them, the bank will cash it REGARDLESS of what the date written on it is, or what caveats you wrote on the front. People still do so, but it's a complete myth that they serve any actual legal or binding function. The fact is, you wrote them a check, and they can get the money and do whatever they want with it, on whatever day they decide to cash it. So if this GoFundMe campaign wants to turn over a 3-5 million dollar check to the IRS, they are free to do so, but no matter how many times they mention it or write it on the dotted line, they CANNOT make sure it pays for the wall.
Donald Trump would like to stop talking about the wall now
https://www.vox.com/2018/12/20/18150001/donald-trump-wall-gofundme-brian-kolfageHis supporters, however, have launched a GoFundMe page to pay for it.
Good luck getting the money to pay for it from Mexico...
Trump: "I have these magic beans (the wall) that will solve all your problems!"
Crowd:"How many billion do you want!"
Apparently Rush Limbaugh just said on his radio show that Trump assured him PERSONALLY that he is shutting the government down if he doesn't get wall funding. The country is being run by the absolute fringes of the right-wing echo sphere. A Quinnipiac poll on a government shutdown to secure funding for the wall done in the last 3 days has it polling at 34% approval and 62% disapproval.
Speaker Ryan says Trump 'will not sign' bill to keep government open, citing dispute over border wall funding
https://news.yahoo.com/speaker-ryan-says-trump-not-sign-bill-keep-183034232.html?.tsrc=notification-brknewsWhat? He can't speak for himself? Why does Ryan have to be his mouthpiece?
White House Briefing Room After Rare Presser: 'Do Your Job, Sarah!'
https://news.yahoo.com/white-house-briefing-room-rare-204900556.htmlTrump willing to waive twenty-eight environmental laws to get border wall
There are COUNTLESS reasons why Trump’s proposed “big” and “beautiful” wall is a terrible idea:→ It will cost tens of BILLIONS of dollars that could be much better spent elsewhere
→ It will largely be INEFFECTIVE but incredibly DISRUPTIVE to local communities
→ Trump already waived TWENTY-EIGHT environmental laws to get it approved
→ It’s construction WILL BULLDOZE the “most diverse butterfly sanctuary” in the United States resulting in EXTINCTIONS
And Trump doesn't give a rat's ass.
Rachel Maddow And MSNBC Won’t Show Trump, And Now They’re #1
https://www.politicususa.com/2018/12/19/rachel-maddow-and-msnbc-wont-show-trump-and-now-theyre-1.html/amp?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR3ZNPxA7i2hO69njy8-I8zpx3rqb5k4QZNrhc-gXes5JeOXfgCDiz7VhQYRosenstein says Trump AG nominee’s memo had no impact on Mueller probe
https://www.politicususa.com/2018/12/20/rosenstein-says-trump-ag-nominees-memo-had-no-impact-on-mueller-probe.html/ampFascist cell uncovered in German police force
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/12/19/terr-d19.html?fbclid=IwAR0A66kbPYQ6UC1VLlrnUo_RhaeOVp0HnjjEuukU1wPeTZeLBi0EdWZyrb4House Intelligence panel votes to send Roger Stone transcript to Mueller
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/19/politics/mueller-roger-stone-house-intel/index.html?fbclid=IwAR3xoiVfDPBbyxXs5lDtdiXprScdImeTV3VTJVklCc8FzFsvcQSncR0l_zwGood! So much for Stone...
Remember the Big Story in the Russia Scandal: Donald Trump Betrayed America
https://www.motherjones.com/media/2018/12/the-big-story-trump-russia/?list_source=7H8CSF03&term=XX.1.50.00.DON.D.0.16707&fbclid=IwAR1uo2qvsMc3KKmUdqvm4jcDC1IHpdCta2n3Mye8DuMKotFFvd0h92YKE64Trump is a traitor. No ifs, ands or buts.
Look at this baby throwing a temper tantrum, doesn't want to eat his vegetables
Calling Rosie O'Donnell a pig. Essentially calling Carly Fiorina ugly during a debate. Making insinuations that Megyn Kelly was on her period when she asked him a tough question during a debate. Insinuating MSNBC host Mika Brezinski had a botched plastic surgery. Berating a winner of the Miss Universe title for gaining a couple of pounds. Yeah, in typing this out, I almost want to amend my previous statement entirely. If one person deserves to be mercilessly mocked about their appearance, that person would be Donald Trump. I had a tinge of empathy for the guy for about 2 minutes and then realized by going back in my memory bank that yeah, even on this issue, he is a total pile of human garbage. Oh.....and of course the standard chestnut about one of his sexual assault accusers, where a day after she came out with her story he made it very clear at a rally he would have never sexually assaulted her because she was too ugly. And calling the porn star HE came on to for sex a horse-face. I'm gonna just stop now because this could probably go on for another 2 or 3 paragraphs.
The market dropped almost another 500 points today. The government is on the verge of a shutdown over a wall the vast majority of the country has no interest in paying for. The Commander in Chief (whether the decision itself is positive or negative) is making military decisions based on day to day domestic political concerns (that is the most generous view) or just on his mood at any given hour, and his only sane adviser who has any respectability is (I would have to assume) leaving because he can't take it anymore. Meanwhile, the deluge of criminal acts, indictments of associates, and revelations of almost unfathomable levels of corruption at every level continue to drip out day after day after day. If this isn't a sign of the wheels falling off the wagon, I don't know what is. Oh, and the new new nominee for Attorney General had a memo revealed that explicitly states his opposition to Trump being questioned by Mueller:
We are going to have to put a stop to this sooner than later. None of this is remotely close to normal. Not even your least favorite Republican or Democrat (depending on what side of the aisle you come down on) comes anywhere near this level of dysfunction, chaos, subversion of the rule of law, and corruption. We couldn't have possibly made a bigger mistake than putting this guy into office. It has to be corrected or this entire thing is going to fall apart.
Pentagon chief Mattis quits, citing policy differences with Trump
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-says-defense-secretary-mattis-leaving-end-february-223120592.html?.tsrc=notification-brknewsWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general who was known as a stabilizing force in President Donald Trump's Cabinet, will leave his job at the end of February, Trump said in a tweet on Thursday.
His departure had been anticipated since Trump announced on Wednesday that he was withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria despite opposition from U.S. allies and top U.S. military officials.
Mattis said in his resignation letter that he was stepping down so Trump could have a defense chief whose views align more closely with his own.
Trump said he would nominate a successor to Mattis shortly.
Mattis joins a long list of former Trump administration senior figures who have either quit or been removed, some unceremoniously like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who Trump fired via Twitter in March.
Trump's White House has had the highest turnover of senior-level staff of the past five presidents, according to the Brookings Institution think tank.
Speculation that Mattis might not last long in his post grew in October when Trump said in a CBS interview that the general was "sort of a Democrat" and might be leaving.
Russians infiltrated U.S. Treasury in order to obtain info on Clinton allies, Jewish organizations
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/20/1820560/-Russians-infiltrated-U-S-Treasury-in-order-to-obtain-info-on-Clinton-allies-Jewish-organizations?detail=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2wj8GYsqTE6Kl6SW44dLkim2a6jweAxaqcVoTI2-tG2is4P65X_N5BleoBuzzfeed has published an absolute blockbuster of a report: that Russia cultivated relationships with U.S. Treasury Department employees under a program designed to share information about ISIS funding. Using private Gmail and Hotmail accounts, the Russian financial crimes agency created a backchannel with some U.S. Treasury Department officials—and were able to get private financial information, including Social Security numbers of American citizens, in addition to sensitive financial information on Russian dissidents. Here’s just a bit of the extensive reporting from Buzzfeed:
Russia’s financial crimes agency, whose second-in-command is a former KGB officer and schoolmate of President Vladimir Putin, also asked the Americans for documents on executives from two prominent Jewish groups, the Anti-Defamation League and the National Council of Jewish Women, as well as Kremlin opponents living abroad in London and Kiev.
In an astonishing departure from protocol, documents show that at the same time the requests were being made, Treasury officials were using their government email accounts to send messages back and forth with a network of private Hotmail and Gmail accounts set up by the Russians, rather than communicating through the secure network usually used to exchange information with other countries.
OUTRAGEOUS! Did employees of the U.S. Treasury really turn over information on prominent Jewish citizens and organizations to Russia? Hold on, folks, because that’s not all:
Most startlingly, Russia requested sensitive documents on Dirk, Edward, and Daniel Ziff, billionaire investors who had run afoul of the Kremlin. That request was made weeks before a Russian lawyer showed up at Trump Tower offering top campaign aides “dirt” on Hillary Clinton — including her supposed connection to the Ziff brothers.
So, not just Trump is a traitor!
Whatever I think of our involvement in the Middle East, there are two things that really DO bother me about this Syria situation. #1 is that we have essentially just signed the death warrant of countless Kurds who were fighting on our side, just like George H. W. Bush did in '91. We convince them to fight with us, bail on them after they do so, and then they get slaughtered. This time, it is likely Turkey and Erdogan who are going to do so. Which brings up point #2, which may have seemed far-fetched even a year ago. But at this point I can't possibly ignore the likelihood that Trump is now just essentially taking orders from authoritarian monsters like Putin and Erdogan and not only ceding everything to them, but may actually just be acting on what they tell him they want. In fact, I find it highly likely that this is exactly what is happening. There is no reason not to think so at this late date knowing what we now know. I don't even agree remotely with General Mattis on foreign policy, but his resignation letter is basically a backhanded way of telling the country "something is deeply wrong here, pay attention".
CNN National Security Reporter Ryan Browne posted this on Twitter a few minutes ago:
Defense officials tell me Mattis went to the White House to discuss Syria & that he was livid after reading reports that Turkey's Defense Minister threatened to kill US-backed Kurds & put them in ditches once the US withdrew. He was incensed at this notion of betrayal of an ally.
Yep. And this just feeds into a non-stop parade of reasons absolutely NO ONE in the world can trust us anymore. Not to live up to our end of the Iran deal, not to stick by the Paris Climate Deal, and not to not leave a group of people we have already f'd over in the past to be slaughtered by Turkish troops, which they are basically promising to do.
Again, withdraw the troops if need be, but not on some spur of the moment, half-ass decision you communicated with no one before the last 48 hours. Also, if Trump thinks this is some how going to shore up his base, he is seriously miscalculating how the Republican base feels about foreign intervention (hint, they cheered it on for 8 long years during Bush). The left isn't going to rally to his cause because he is being so fundamentally irresponsible about how he is going about it and because they suspect he is taking orders from foreign dictators. And the right (including nearly every Republican Senator not named Rand Paul) is going to raise holy hell over abandoning the missions. There are ways to do this responsibly. This is not one of them.
Trump just unfollowed Ann Coulter on Twitter
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/19/1820293/-Trump-just-blocked-Ann-Coulter-on-Twitter?detail=emaildkrePoor little boy got his feelings hurt!
Grandmother of 10 dies in prison after being held for 5 months on $300 misdemeanor charge
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/19/1820155/-Grandmother-of-10-dies-in-prison-after-being-held-for-5-months-on-300-misdemeanor-charge?detail=emaildkreApparently, they never notified her family. $30 would have had her released on bond.
Heh, 'What about the Clinton Foundation, huh?'
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/19/1820164/-Heh-What-about-the-Clinton-Foundation-huh?detail=emaildkreThe Clinton Foundation has 4 stars as a charity. The Trump Foundation had 0.
House passes temporary government funding bill that includes border wall money
https://news.yahoo.com/u-government-shutdown-looms-trump-insists-wall-funding-000710790--business.html?.tsrc=notification-brknewsBut will the House? And has Paul Ryan become 'Mexico'?
Trump's making an extraordinary effort to escape accountability for his unconstitutional profits
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/18/1819952/-Trump-s-making-an-extraordinary-effort-to-escape-accountability-for-his-unconstitutional-profits?detail=emaildkreTrump has lost all the emoluments cases against him so far. But he continues to fight.
Trump concedes there’s never been a proceeding of this nature under the emoluments clauses, but then insists that this case involves a “controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion.” A difference of opinion requires divergent strains of precedent or some potential conflict among rulings. Here, as Trump acknowledged, there’s no precedent at all to wield against the district court.
The only precedent that exists kneecaps Trump’s outrageous legal maneuver. In 2004, in a case involving the Bush administration (Cheney v. US Dist. Court for D.C.), the Supreme Court slapped back a mandamus challenge quite similar to Trump’s, in so doing affirming a Nixon-era SCOTUS decision. Even where the court’s granted permission for “overly broad” discovery, it’s on the defendant—even when the defendant is POTUS—to object to specific elements of discovery as, for example, violative of executive privilege.
Judge Emmet Sullivan hits Trump again—rules asylum policy 'unlawful'
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/19/1820153/-Judge-Emmet-Sullivan-hits-Trump-again-rules-Administration-s-immigration-policy-unlawful?detail=emaildkreTrump had better get used to getting slapped down by the courts. I have a feeling it's going to happen a lot.
Saudi officials allegedly waterboarded and electrocuted detained women's rights activists
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/19/1820175/-Saudi-officials-allegedly-waterboarded-and-electrocuted-detained-women-s-rights-activists?detail=emaildkreAnd these are the people Jared Kushner and Donald Trump want to be like...
Good-bye Republican National Committee, hello Trump National Committee
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/19/1820192/-Goody-bye-Republican-National-Committee-hello-Trump-National-Committee?detail=emaildkreI can only see Trump backing people who support him, so his party is going to get even more leech-like...
President Obama surprises kids at Children's National Medical Center with gifts and good cheer
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/19/1820226/-President-Obama-surprises-children-at-with-gifts-and-good-cheer-at-Children-s-Medical-Center?detail=emaildkreTHIS is what a President should do, not be a buffoon!
Last-minute surge stabilizes Obamacare enrollments for 2019
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/19/1820213/-Last-minute-surge-stabilizes-Obamacare-enrollments-for-2019?detail=emaildkreThis despite outreach being cut to nothing under Trump
Asylum seeker reunited with son after being separated for five months: 'I spent it crying'
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/19/1820143/-Asylum-seeker-reunited-with-son-after-being-separated-for-five-months-I-spent-it-crying?detail=emaildkreNobody should be separated from their kids for that long. Nobody.
Thirty Mile High Wave Encircling Earth to Break over North Pole on Christmas Day
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/19/1820257/-Thirty-Mile-High-Wave-Encircling-Earth-to-Break-over-North-Pole-on-Christmas-Day?detail=emaildkreLook out, Santa Claus!
~
I still stand by my claim that the only reason why Trump wants a government shutdown is so that he can't be impeached. He's not signing anything under Mueller is silenced. The wall is just an excuse, although I am curious who in the Steel industry has him by the balls as well.
Just days before Christmas, Trump fires two U.S. airmen for being HIV-positive
https://www.queerty.com/just-days-christmas-trump-fires-two-u-s-airmen-hiv-positive-20181220?fbclid=IwAR1OuPSU_nz5-KVN3L1iKSUdacbbuXUEwwY3tUTYU9a-meeJF8_az6jK1YIThis makes me want to kick his overly large ass as hard as I can.
I actually doubt Trump had anything to do with this one. This particular article is a little sensationalized. It relates more to a DOD policy. This Washington Post article is a little more sober. I don't really have a problem with them not deploying them, but they should have been reassigned to desk jobs if that was the case. The problem here is that they were kicked out, which IS totally unreasonable. But this isn't like when Trump called for a total ban on transgender troops. There is no way he was personally signing off on this. For one thing, he's too lazy to get into that kind of minutia. Regardless, now that Mattis is leaving, the lawsuit may have to hold until the new Secretary of Defense (and who the hell is going to take THAT job at this point) will be at the center of it:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/they-tested-positive-for-hiv-then-the-military-kicked-them-out/2018/12/19/203d9838-032a-11e9-8186-4ec26a485713_story.html?utm_term=.b0e8ae2a6d97
Apparently, it's to take attention off talk of the wall. :P
Trump Signs Farm Bill, Backs Rule Sidestepping Congress On More Work For Food Stamps
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/20/678593200/sidestepping-congress-trump-administration-proposes-more-work-rules-for-food-sta?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2050&fbclid=IwAR1sD2dhXZxi7bZwcfJB4WylsP_Pq0nkXMVdPh_suJMSg_RmjDJ_4KBwtwoWhile the House GOP-backed plan for stricter work rules was left out of the final law, hours ahead of the bill signing, the Trump administration announced it would renew those efforts.
In a move that would sidestep Congress, the Agriculture Department unveiled a regulatory proposal to expand work requirements for those in receiving food assistance.
The proposed rule change tightens the criteria states can use to waive work requirements in areas that have high unemployment. Currently, states are able to request waivers in areas where there are "not sufficient jobs."
Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker's "decision not to recuse himself from the Special Counsel's investigation" was made against the advice he was given by Justice Department ethics officials, Senate leaders were informed on Thursday.
The Department of Justice's senior career ethics official told the senior staff of the Justice Department that ethics officials "would advise" that Whitaker recuse himself if asked, the letter obtained by BuzzFeed News detailed.
Specifically, the ethics official advised that Whitaker's oversight of the special counsel's investigation could "raise an appearance-of-impartiality issue" due to his past comments critical of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
Whitaker was informed of that view, but nonetheless decided not to recuse himself, the letter from Stephen Boyd, the assistant attorney general for DOJ's Office of Legislative Affairs, stated.
And as I mentioned before, Trump's long-term pick wrote a memo detailing why the President should not be subject to questioning on obstruction. But the amazing thing about that story is that no one asked him to write a memo about it. It was a completely unsolicited opinion that he basically sent to the White House like it was a job application. We have LONG known that Trump view the office of the Attorney General as his own personal lawyer to shield him against criminal and political liability. Jeff Sessions, for all his horrendous faults, refused to be that man. Now he has an acting AG and a nominee for a permanent position who not only don't have a problem taking on that roll, they seem to have been actively seeking to attain it.
I know it's stating the obvious, but it's really not normal to have a president who believes that allies should not be treated with respect - nor is it the case here that departing from the normal is a good idea.
As an aside I was surprised to see in the letter the spelling of "defence". That's not the official spelling of his title and the use of "s" rather than "c" seems to be universal in the US. When writing in this Forum I use US spellings (even though they do rather grate on my sensibilities
There's more.
The "unsolicited" part is what really concerns me. Senator Dianne Feinstein put it better than I could: It seems fairly clear to me. Whitaker knew that Trump wanted a different attorney general, so he took aim at the position and managed to secure it for himself once Sessions was gone by getting a simple message to Trump's team:
"If you make me attorney general, I will not recuse myself--I will constrain the Mueller investigation for you."
Again, we see this insidious pattern where Trump attempts to sabotage investigations into his conduct, and when that alienates honorable people and pushes them away, corrupt people and opportunists slip in to fill their place. This is worse than just forcing his associates to sign a series of non-disclosure agreements to forcibly prevent them from speaking up about him; he's directly trying to silence law enforcement itself.
We're seeing the strength of our institutions being tested. We're seeing a president repeatedly using his executive powers to shield himself from federal investigators, and he can. What kind of precedent does that set, that a president can manipulate law enforcement to protect himself and get away with it? That does nothing but give cover to corrupt people who want to abuse their power to shield themselves from the law.
Even if you have every sympathy for Trump, the fact that he is free to thwart federal investigators is indefensible. No one, however innocent or guilty, should be able to sabotage law enforcement.
Amazon appears to be extremely ineffectual or simply uninterested in combating the problem; the appeals system is incredibly opaque (Amazon won't even tell you what rule you allegedly broke) and even if you've been framed for some wrongdoing, the only way out is to issue a false confession, since the appeals system treats all accused parties as guilty. Even the people running the appeals system are incentivized to be unforgiving; they get heavily penalized if they restore an account that gets in trouble later on.
It sounds like making money on Amazon is less about providing good products at low prices, and more about manipulating Amazon's algorithms and sabotaging your competitors.
Sen Corker: Tillerson, Mattis and Kelly 'separate our country from chaos'
https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/04/politics/bob-corker-mattis-tillerson-kelly/index.html
Well all three (four if you include Corker) are out the door already or very soon. And what do you know he's right it is chaos with more chaos on the horizon.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/21/politics/james-mattis-donald-trump-world/index.html
Immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are fleeing disastrous policies from the war on drugs. They are escaping poverty. They are fleeing oppressive right wing governments, gangs and violence that have been ruining their lives supported by US policies. A wall won't change those facts.
The wall is again another con from Donald Trump. Surprise right. It's a simple solution to a complex problem. At it's base it's the same lie that the traveling salesman told people in the 1800s when he rolled into town and sold magic tonic water would cure every illness. You'd get the water, he'd leave town and surprise it didn't work.
https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/12/14/world/atheist-family-wins-anti-holiday-lawsuit-trnd/?r=https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/12/19/asia/korea-air-nut-rage-settlement-intl/?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww-m.cnn.com%2F2018%2F12%2F20%2Fpolitics%2Fjames-mattis-defense-secretary-resignation-reaction%2Findex.html%3Fr%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.cnn.com%252F
There may not be a war on Christmas but belligerent atheists being rewarded with cash is pretty shocking to me. It's just too bad a child has to be dragged through this turmoil. Seriously, a father who mimics Nazi salutes is rewarded? Not only that, these parents want ornaments in a friggin' daycare center that openly mock religion? What a couple of assholes!
The money was not given because the parents complained about religion. It was compensation for their daughter being barred from school.