Beyond Deplorable
The President's comments this weekend about Puerto Rico are breathtaking. He has been insulting the mayor of San Juan, who is begging for help as the island is immersed in what is probably the worst disaster ever to hit the United States. Millions of people are suffering, there is no water or electricity or gasoline, cholera is starting to break out. Thousands of people are still unaccounted for. Many are dying. The President clearly does not understand the situation, and yet he is going out of his way to deliberately make it worse.
It is hard to read the news since Maria hit -- well for most of the week there was no news, Puerto Rico was a black hole in the information space, with no telephones, no radio transmitters, no way in and out. Now there is some word from there, some video from San Juan, but the smaller towns are still unknowable. As news begins to leak out, the scenery is horrific. Hurricane Maria has devastated the entire island. The pain is hard to imagine, you want to jump in your car and go there to help, but you can't.
They speak Spanish there, and you know how he feels about Hispanics. Today Trump said, "Such poor leadership ability by the mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help." Because you know how lazy those people are. He said, "The mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump." Because, you know, it's all about him. He tweeted this from the golf course. "They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort," Trump said. Because, you know, those lazy bad-hombre-sort-of-like-Mexicans are just sitting in their cars for nine hours a day waiting to buy gasoline instead of putting their houses back on their foundations with non-electric tools.
And what is this? He outdid himself on Twitter:
This morning Trump called the people of Puerto Rico "politically motivated ingrates" and tweeted: "people are now starting to recognize the amazing work that has been done by FEMA and our great Military. All buildings now inspected". The governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, told CNN "I'm not aware of such inspections, there are areas of Puerto Rico where we really haven't gotten contact." Just yesterday, Mother Jones reporters visited the 19,000-person town of Ciales, 45 minutes from San Juan, and found that not a single federal worker had been there.
You knew he would let them down. His Presidential campaign first got real attention with his comment about Mexico sending their rapists and bad hombres to our country. His biggest selling point has been his distaste for foreigners and people who are different from him -- women, LGBT people, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, just about anybody. That's what his supporters like about him, that's what "MAGA" is all about. If something bad happens to those non-real-Americans, they deserve it. People in Puerto Rico speak Spanish but they are American citizens. This is where your attitude about Americans should come into play, not your attitude about Hispanics. Or imagine caring about people just because they're people, and helping them because you can, and they need it. Or because it is your responsibility.
These new comments leave "deplorable" in the dust. This is depraved. If this is how one of America's two major political parties feels then this country is much worse off than I ever imagined. How can someone see what is happening in Puerto Rico and not feel empathy and a sense of panic? How can you not want to help? You and I can't do anything about it beyond maybe donating, but he's the President of the United States, he can literally save the day. This was a huge hurricane, we saw it approaching for days, and there was no federal preparation. It hit, the island was decimated, and the President went golfing. He picked a fight with protesting athletes. He didn't say anything about Puerto Rico or do anything for days.
Since the election everyone has known he will fail when he faces his first real crisis -- it has been a cliche to say that. But nobody -- even those with the lowest opinions of him -- believed that, given a catastrophe with millions of Americans' lives destroyed, he would actively, intentionally try to make the situation worse. We thought he'd be incompetent, but it never occurred to anyone that he would taunt those who were dying and begging for help, that he would go off and golf and pick a fight with some black guys protesting police violence when a huge number of American lives are in jeopardy.
There is one little piece of irony here. Puerto Ricans are Americans, so when they move to the continental US they are not "immigrants" and Trump can't ban them. And they are coming to Florida by the tens of thousands, fleeing the disaster. Trump won Florida in 2016 with only 49 percent of the vote -- in that state the winner gets all the electoral college delegates. You can bet these Puerto Ricans aren't going to support him next time around. It could make the difference.
It is hard to read the news since Maria hit -- well for most of the week there was no news, Puerto Rico was a black hole in the information space, with no telephones, no radio transmitters, no way in and out. Now there is some word from there, some video from San Juan, but the smaller towns are still unknowable. As news begins to leak out, the scenery is horrific. Hurricane Maria has devastated the entire island. The pain is hard to imagine, you want to jump in your car and go there to help, but you can't.
They speak Spanish there, and you know how he feels about Hispanics. Today Trump said, "Such poor leadership ability by the mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help." Because you know how lazy those people are. He said, "The mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump." Because, you know, it's all about him. He tweeted this from the golf course. "They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort," Trump said. Because, you know, those lazy bad-hombre-sort-of-like-Mexicans are just sitting in their cars for nine hours a day waiting to buy gasoline instead of putting their houses back on their foundations with non-electric tools.
And what is this? He outdid himself on Twitter:
To the people of Puerto Rico:What in the world can that mean? He is tweeting to an island of millions of people who do not even have electricity. They do not have news. They do not care about the news. This is not a political game to them. They are the news. Their own houses are destroyed, they are drinking sewage, their cars are out of gas, there is no food. By "fake news," does the President mean "real news?" Yes, of course he does. He means, don't believe it when you read that we are not rescuing you. This communication fails on so many levels, it is hard to imagine that it is not something out of a satirical dystopian novel. He really does not understand what is going on.
Do not believe the #FakeNews!
This morning Trump called the people of Puerto Rico "politically motivated ingrates" and tweeted: "people are now starting to recognize the amazing work that has been done by FEMA and our great Military. All buildings now inspected". The governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, told CNN "I'm not aware of such inspections, there are areas of Puerto Rico where we really haven't gotten contact." Just yesterday, Mother Jones reporters visited the 19,000-person town of Ciales, 45 minutes from San Juan, and found that not a single federal worker had been there.
You knew he would let them down. His Presidential campaign first got real attention with his comment about Mexico sending their rapists and bad hombres to our country. His biggest selling point has been his distaste for foreigners and people who are different from him -- women, LGBT people, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, just about anybody. That's what his supporters like about him, that's what "MAGA" is all about. If something bad happens to those non-real-Americans, they deserve it. People in Puerto Rico speak Spanish but they are American citizens. This is where your attitude about Americans should come into play, not your attitude about Hispanics. Or imagine caring about people just because they're people, and helping them because you can, and they need it. Or because it is your responsibility.
These new comments leave "deplorable" in the dust. This is depraved. If this is how one of America's two major political parties feels then this country is much worse off than I ever imagined. How can someone see what is happening in Puerto Rico and not feel empathy and a sense of panic? How can you not want to help? You and I can't do anything about it beyond maybe donating, but he's the President of the United States, he can literally save the day. This was a huge hurricane, we saw it approaching for days, and there was no federal preparation. It hit, the island was decimated, and the President went golfing. He picked a fight with protesting athletes. He didn't say anything about Puerto Rico or do anything for days.
Since the election everyone has known he will fail when he faces his first real crisis -- it has been a cliche to say that. But nobody -- even those with the lowest opinions of him -- believed that, given a catastrophe with millions of Americans' lives destroyed, he would actively, intentionally try to make the situation worse. We thought he'd be incompetent, but it never occurred to anyone that he would taunt those who were dying and begging for help, that he would go off and golf and pick a fight with some black guys protesting police violence when a huge number of American lives are in jeopardy.
There is one little piece of irony here. Puerto Ricans are Americans, so when they move to the continental US they are not "immigrants" and Trump can't ban them. And they are coming to Florida by the tens of thousands, fleeing the disaster. Trump won Florida in 2016 with only 49 percent of the vote -- in that state the winner gets all the electoral college delegates. You can bet these Puerto Ricans aren't going to support him next time around. It could make the difference.
posted by JimK at 1:34 PM
74 Comments:
"His biggest selling point has been his distaste for foreigners and people who are different from him -- women, LGBT people, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, just about anybody. That's what his supporters like about him, that's what "MAGA" is all about."
The GOTP don't like poor kids either:
Health Insurance For 9 Million Kids On The Line As Congress Fails To Meet Deadline
Lawmakers are playing with fire.
Oh, I generally agree we should help Puerto Rico, we should remember that they have been invited to become a state in the past but have chosen not to and one key issue is that they don't want to have to pay Federal income tax.
Let's look at Jim's post:
"Since the election everyone has known he will fail when he faces his first real crisis -- it has been a cliche to say that."
You mean other than the hurricanes that hit Texas and Florida and the new hostile nuclear power that has developed ICBMs that can reach the US and says it intends to use them?
"But nobody -- even those with the lowest opinions of him -- believed that, given a catastrophe with millions of Americans' lives destroyed, he would actively, intentionally try to make the situation worse."
Whether he did that is a matter of debate. Criticizing local officials might motivate them to up their game. The criticism may be off-base but its a stretch to say it made things worse.
"We thought he'd be incompetent, but it never occurred to anyone that he would taunt those who were dying and begging for help,"
He actually didn't do that.
"that he would go off and golf"
Is there something wrong with golfing? Have TTFers engaged in any recreational activities since Maria hit, or have you been working 24/7 to send care packages to the island?
"and pick a fight with some black guys protesting police violence when a huge number of American lives are in jeopardy."
Some blacks guys? You mean guys who make millions of dollars to play with a ball who criticize policemen who make low wages fighting crime and promoting the general welfare in parts of cities that TTFers don't go to?
Lawmakers ask Trump to 'get to work' on Puerto Rico
"SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Oct 1 (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers urged President Donald Trump on Sunday to stop sniping at Puerto Ricans and get to work helping them recover from a devastating hurricane, two days before he was to visit the island, where people remained without food, water or power.
The Republican president said his government was doing a "great job" to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria and took a new swipe at critics who said he had been slow to aid the island, where the power grid was destroyed 12 days ago.
"We have done a great job with the almost impossible situation in Puerto Rico. Outside of the Fake News or politically motivated ingrates," he said in a Twitter post.
Trump faces difficult weeks, if not months, in the U.S. territory. His senior general leading military relief operations in Puerto Rico, Lieutenant General Jeff Buchanan, said they were clearing roads and getting more supplies to people, but recognized "it's still a long haul."
Trump has intensified his praise of the federal response after the mayor of San Juan made clear those efforts fell short and American media continued to broadcast images of the havoc and suffering on the island that belied his words.
At the same time, he criticized San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz on Saturday and said Puerto Ricans wanted "everything to be done for them."
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer told CBS' "Face the Nation" the relief effort so far has been "slow footed, disorganized and not adequate."
"The president, instead of tweeting against the mayor of San Juan who's watching her people die and just made a plea for help, ought to roll up his sleeves and get to work here," he said.
Senator Bernie Sanders, a Democratic presidential contender in 2016, said on CNN Trump's attacks from his "fancy golf club" on the struggling mayor of a destroyed city were "unspeakable."
"I don't know what world Trump is living in," he said...
...Cruz said on Sunday she would be willing to meet Trump when he visits the island on Tuesday. "If he asks to meet with me, of course I will meet him."
Trump launched his attack on San Juan's mayor during a weekend stay at his golf resort in New Jersey, where he was attending the President's Cup tournament on Sunday.
He dedicated the Cup trophy to victims of Maria and this summer's previous major hurricanes Irma and Harvey, "all of those people that went through so much, that we love."
Referring to Puerto Rico, Trump said "we have it under really great control.""
Where is Trump's plane while Pitbull sends private plane to Puerto Rico to transport cancer patients
Instead of insulting Mayor Cruz like Trump does when she laments the US's slow response to Maria's devastation, the NFL to use Week 4 games to hep Puerto Rico relief efforts
today, the new spiffed up SCOTUS begins dismantling the gay agenda
it will be a wondrous thing to behold
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
well, you should have said something
now, they're coming for anyone who refuses to serve the gay agenda
but, no worries, Neil Goresuch is coming to the rescue
"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist."
this actually happened
a socialists won the NH primary over Hillary but the largest margin for a non-incumbent ever
and the Clinton crime syndicate came for him
they colluded with the national party chair against the scoialist
and riots broke out at his rallies and black lives matter shouted him down
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "today, the new spiffed up SCOTUS begins dismantling the gay agenda it will be a wondrous thing to behold".
Gee Wyatt/bad anonymous, you told us Trump was the most gay friendly presidential candidate ever and would be great for gays.
How was that lie appropriate?
Priya, Priya...
the gay agenda and gay friendliness are not synonymous
Trump treats gays like real people
no other President has ever done that
that's old-fashioned friendliness
the gay agenda is just the Dems' plan to exploit sexual deviants for their own political gain
got it?
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I don't think the government should steal people's money and give it to other people who didn't earn it
well, Priya claims to have "earned" money by selling real estate that someone had long ago stolen from Indians
tonight the two Native American football teams play each other: the Washington Redskisn and the Kansas City Chiefs
don't say anything: the SCOTUS says it's cool
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "well, Priya claims to have "earned" money by selling real estate that someone had long ago stolen from Indians".
That's very interesting Wyatt. I didn't peg you for someone who believed no one in North America other than the aboriginals has a legal or moral right to any property here.
Although that is in keeping with the dictates of your god who punishes the offspring for the sins of their ancestors.
What a monster you worship - ewwwww! No wonder you are so morally deficient.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "the gay agenda and gay friendliness are not synonymous Trump treats gays like real people no other President has ever done that that's old-fashioned friendliness the gay agenda is just the Dems' plan to exploit sexual deviants for their own political gain got it?".
So, you're saying:
Its gay friendly and great for gays to have Trump act to take away their right to marry and allow business to discriminate against them.
And its bad for and exploiting gays to have a Democrat president act to maintain their right to marry and prevent business from discriminating against them?
Just want to make sure I've got you straight here.
And, what specific examples of "Trump treating gays like real people" are you thinking of that benefit gays and make up for Trump enabling discrimination against them and banning gay marriage?
"Fake news about the Las Vegas shooting spread wildly on Facebook, Google, and Twitter
Facebook, Google, and Twitter have spent the past several weeks insisting they are committed to stopping the spread of misinformation and malicious speech on their platforms.
But early on Monday, viral fake news stories ricocheted across the platforms and to the top of Google's search algorithm — this time about the deadly mass shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas.
A 4chan message board about the Las Vegas shooting rocketed to the top of Google's Top Stories, a tool distinct from Google News, which is vetted by humans.
Users on the board incorrectly identified the shooter. Many far-right users said the incorrect shooter had followed Democratic pages on social media.
The story was quickly picked up and magnified by far-right conspiracy outlet the Gateway Pundit, a website that has repeatedly misidentified attackers and continues to promote debunked conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama's birthplace, among other fake stories.
Some observers quickly said the story — titled "Las Vegas Shooter Reportedly a Democrat Who Liked Rachel Maddow, MoveOn.org, and Associated with Anti-Trump Army" — was incorrect, but not before it began to go viral in its own right.
While the Gateway Pundit removed the story, the site's White House correspondent Lucian Wintrich criticized and mocked reporters who inquired about how the site published the piece.
And after posting its original story, another Gateway Pundit article algorithmically jumped to the top of Facebook's "crisis response" page.
'A good demonstration of the magnitude of the challenge that these companies are facing'
That was just one of a several false bits of information circulating on social media.
BuzzFeed News compiled a list Monday morning of viral tweets about supposed missing individuals, some of which were obviously fake but circulated nonetheless.
On its "safety check" page, Facebook linked to a story on a self-proclaimed alt-right blog, which suggested that the concert was "more like the kind of target a left-wing nutjob would choose."
And other users like far-right provocateur Laura Loomer went viral on Twitter stoking speculation that Islamic terror groups were responsible for the shooting. The FBI said Monday that there is no evidence suggesting any connection to international terrorist groups — ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, but did not provide evidence..."
Read all about it here: https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/10/02/fake-news-about-the-las-vegas-shooting-spread-wildly-on-facebook-google-and-twitter/23230475/
nothing to get riled about
everyone knows that social media "news" needs to be taken with a grain of salt
big deal
we were doing that for years before social media existed, with the tabloids in the grocery line, for example
the real tragedy is how irresponsible the mainstream media has become
they've always had some bias
but starting with the last election cycle, all restraint has been lost
and, I think we're all aware, you're only concerned because the unsubstantiated reports have linked the shooter with the Dems
if it was the other way around you wouldn't be screaming "FAKE NEWS!", you'd be saying "multiple sources say"
this is similar to the Russian hoax
Russians have always tried to influence our elections
makes sense, we are THE world superpower
it's interesting to note, but they don't have that much effect
but the only reason it's been so hyped this go round is because instead of the left, which they usually favor, they favored Trump because they perceived that he would be an isolationist
now, the Dems are blazing new trails in anti-constitutionalism by suggesting regulating the media
freedom of the press is worth preserving
Psst. Hey, you. Wanna read something dangerous?
It’s a government document so incendiary that the feds have tried to suppress it. They’ve purged it from their websites and disavowed its claims.
But it’s not about Roswell, or who killed JFK. It’s not even about climate change.
It’s something far juicier: a 34-page technical paper about corporate income taxes.
And it’s a document that matters if you’re trying to game out whether (and how much) enormous corporate tax cuts will trickle down to workers.
See, prior to 2008, whenever Treasury crunched the numbers on this subject, staffers assumed that corporate income taxes were borne only by owners of capital. That is: shareholders.
But toward the end of the George W. Bush administration, the non-political career people in Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis, a sort of internal think tank, began developing a new model taking into account newer research.
In 2012, they released a paper explaining their latest findings: that 82 percent of corporate taxes were borne by capital owners, and 18 percent were borne by labor. Workers don’t literally write the check, of course, but corporate taxes may discourage investment, and therefore lead to lower wages.
Figuring out who actually bears the burden of taxes, and who therefore benefits from corporate tax cuts, is thorny. We have limited data available, after all, and no true controlled experiments for changes in federal tax policy. But the answers these Treasury staffers produced are not so far from those of most other major nonpartisan tax crunchers, including the Congressional Budget Office, the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Tax Policy Center.
The Treasury paper was subsequently published in an elite academic journal. Outside of tax wonk circles, the numbers were generally ignored.
Until now.
That’s because Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has been lately claiming that nearly all of the corporate tax burden is passed on to workers. It’s an argument that he has to make if he hopes to sell the administration’s tax cuts — which even a large share of Republicans opposes — as a helping hand for the Forgotten Man.
On Fox News, Mnuchin claimed that “most economists believe that over 70 percent of corporate taxes are paid for by the workers.” At an event in Kentucky, he declared that “over 80 percent of business taxes is borne by the worker.”
Tax watchers and interviewers began pointing out that Mnuchin’s claims were at odds not only with most credible estimates but also with those of his own staff.
Which clearly annoyed Mnuchin.
So Treasury took the unusual — unprecedented? — step of quietly deleting the inconvenient findings from its website.
It’s not clear when this erasure happened. The paper’s disappearance was first reported last week by the Wall Street Journal’s ace tax reporter, Richard Rubin. When I requested an interview with Treasury about the deletion, a spokesperson emailed me that “the paper was a dated staff analysis from the previous administration. It does not represent our current thinking and analysis.”
Which is a peculiar excuse, and not only because the paper was produced by nonpolitical staffers who still work at Treasury. Office of Tax Analysis models get revised all the time; that’s why this paper was produced in the first place, after all.
Updates to methodology — if that’s really all this was — do not require deletion of older technical reports, which normally stay archived online for transparency reasons. Four decades’ worth of other Office of Tax Analysis working papers somehow remain online, even though many of those have been superseded by subsequent reports.
In removing the paper, Trump officials are making it easier to conceal what their tax plan does, and whom it helps. This is part of a broader GOP effort to duck accountability...
...The Senate Budget Resolution, for example, includes language that could help sideline any CBO analysis of the tax bill.
Surrogates on the Hill and executive branch have also been (somewhat incompetently) smearing the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The center recently produced a preliminary analysis of the Republican tax framework. It estimated that by 2027 the proposal would increase deficits by $2.4 trillion, with about 80 percent of tax cuts going to the top 1 percent.
Asked about these numbers on ABC’s “This Week,” Mnuchin claimed that no one can credibly estimate the effect of the plan, given how many details are still up in the air. In virtually the same breath, he also asserted that the plan will reduce deficits by $1 trillion and primarily benefit the middle class.
Those two statements can’t both be true, at least not simultaneously.
In other words, no matter how hard Trump officials try — and as this report disappearance demonstrates, they’re trying hard — they can’t keep their own lies straight.
CBS on Monday fired an executive on its legal team after she wrote on Facebook about how she did not care about the victims of a mass shooting at a Las Vegas country music festival because they were most likely Republican and owned guns.
Hayley Geftman-Gold, a vice president in the strategic transactions department at CBS, said she had little faith that Congress would act on gun-control legislation because Republicans didn't support a background-check bill following the Sandy Hook shooting.
She also wrote that she was not sympathetic to the victims of the shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday — in which at least 59 people were killed and 527 were injured — because, she said, country music fans are often Republicans and own guns.
She wrote, "I'm actually not even sympathetic bc country music fans often are republican gun toters."
CBS announced in a statement that it had fired Geftman-Gold.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "the gay agenda and gay friendliness are not synonymous Trump treats gays like real people no other President has ever done that that's old-fashioned friendliness the gay agenda is just the Dems' plan to exploit sexual deviants for their own political gain got it?".
So, you're saying:
Its gay friendly and great for gays to have Trump act to take away their right to marry and allow business to discriminate against them.
And its bad for and exploiting gays to have a Democrat president act to maintain their right to marry and prevent business from discriminating against them?
Just want to make sure I've got you straight here.
And, what specific examples of "Trump treating gays like real people" are you thinking of that benefit gays and make up for Trump enabling discrimination against them and banning gay marriage?
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "everyone knows that social media "news" needs to be taken with a grain of salt...Russians have always tried to influence our elections".
Russia has never put such a massive and multifaceted effort into changing the result of an American election. Over 10 million people saw targeted Russian fake news discrediting Hillary and praising Trump. The majority of Americans take facebook news at face value and only a tiny portion (77,000) of those seeing the Russian fake news needed to be swayed to elect the popular vote losing pussy grabber.
Without a doubt Trump would not have been elected if it weren't for the tremendous Russian effort involving thousands of trolls to sway the election.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "today, the new spiffed up SCOTUS begins dismantling the gay agenda it will be a wondrous thing to behold".
Gee Wyatt/bad anonymous, you told us Trump was the most gay friendly presidential candidate ever and would be great for gays.
How was that lie appropriate?
Correction:
" The majority of Americans take facebook news at face value and only a tiny portion (77,000) of those seeing the Russian fake news needed to be swayed to elect the popular vote losing pussy grabber."
should be
The majority of Americans take facebook news at face value and only a tiny portion (38,500) of those seeing the Russian fake news needed to be swayed to elect the popular vote losing pussy grabber.
The United Nations condemned the death penalty for gayness. The Trump government voted against the resolution.
But, hey, "he's the most gay friendly presidential candidate ever" and "Trump treats gays like real people no other President has ever done that that's old-fashioned friendliness" and the Democrats supporting that U.N. resolution "exploit[s] sexual deviants for their own political gain", amirite?
The Trump administration supports Sharia law for gays.
So much for "I'll protect you from a hateful foreign ideology.".
Trump lies just as easily and naturally as he breathes. Just like Wyatt/bad anonymous.
But her emails!
if trump wasn't so gay-friendly, he might turn into a decent President
he's making progress:
Ronald Reagan after the Challenger disaster. Bill Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing. George W. Bush after the terror attacks in Washington and New York. Barack Obama after the church shooting in Charleston.
And now this: Donald Trump after Las Vegas.
In some ways – not in the American Constitution but surely in the American tradition–the President is the nation's First Responder.
And almost all of them, even those known for being divisive, are prompted by these occasions to speak to American unity – as Mr. Trump did when he said on Monday, in his formal remarks in the Diplomatic Room of the White House, that Americans' "unity cannot be shattered by evil. Our bonds cannot be broken by violence."
These are sober moments of condolence and compassion, the sort chief executives neither expect nor are prepared for, the kind that call upon presidential presence. For Mr. Trump – whose responses to the episode in Charlottesville, Va., and even the London Bridge attack stirred rather than cooled passions – this was an important challenge, especially so for a president who has stretched the boundaries of presidential comportment and yet has struggled to appear presidential.
And amid the flash of news reports and the reckoning of body counts growing out of the worst mass shooting in the country's modern history, Mr. Trump – still under criticism for his response to the Puerto Rico hurricane disaster and for his attacks on the mayor of San Juan – responded to both the news and the moment.
For his critics – who have assailed him in the past several days for stoking controversy over the National Anthem at NFL games, for undercutting his own Secretary of State over North Korean negotiations, and for producing a tax overhaul that would favour business and the wealthiest – there was little to criticize.
He produced a spare statement, expressed the nation's grief and pledged to visit the scene. Simple, perhaps, but significant in Mr. Trump's presidential passage, which so often has been marked by excess – his own and his critics'.
It was a minute waltz of woe: He did not say anything he did not know. He did not stumble over awkward wording. His suit jacket was buttoned, his tie was sombre. He did not, like Obama, use the occasion to campaign for specific legislation or political gain. And when he used the pronoun "I" it was in service of conveying his thanks, as in "I want to thank the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and all of the first responders for their courageous efforts."
There is no playbook for Presidential response, yet whether inadvertently, instinctively or intentionally, Mr. Trump hit many of the touchstones of presidential tragedy response.
Like Mr. Bush after the terrorist attacks, Mr. Trump employed the word "evil" to describe the acts that brought tragedy to America's door.
In urging Americans not to surrender to anguish, Mr. Trump said, "Even the most terrible despair can be illuminated by a single ray of hope." Like Mr. Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombings, the President leaned on Scripture. Mr. Clinton quoted Romans 12:21, urging Americans "not [to] be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." The remarks from Mr. Trump – like Mr. Reagan, not ordinarily known for spiritual introspection – were in his own words: "Scripture teaches us 'The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.' We seek comfort in those words, for we know that God lives in the hearts of those who grieve."
And like Mr. Reagan after the Challenger spacecraft disaster, Mr. Trump expressed sober and sincere thanks. To the engineers, technicians and aerospace scientists of NASA, the 40th president said, "Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it." To the police and rescue squad workers of Las Vegas, the 45th president said, "The speed with which they acted is miraculous and prevented further loss of life."
In that Challenger speech, Mr. Reagan quoted Royal Canadian Air Force aviator and poet John Gillespie Magee Jr., saying that Americans would not forget the astronauts who waved goodbye on their way to the space shuttle, and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God." Mr. Trump made no such literary allusions, but, "I know we are searching for some kind of meaning in the chaos, some kind of light in the darkness," Trump said during his brief remarks. "The answers do not come easy." That, too, is in the American presidential tradition.
The famous remark from F. Scott Fitzgerald, "There are no second acts in American life," does not apply to American presidents. The second act this week for Mr. Trump comes with his twin visits, first to Puerto Rico on Tuesday and then to Las Vegas on Wednesday. The passage from Fitzgerald comes from The Last Tycoon – an unfinished novel.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "today, the new spiffed up SCOTUS begins dismantling the gay agenda it will be a wondrous thing to behold".
Gee Wyatt/bad anonymous, you told us Trump was the most gay friendly presidential candidate ever and would be great for gays.
How was that lie appropriate?
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "if trump wasn't so gay-friendly, he might turn into a decent President...Trump treats gays like real people no other President has ever done that that's old-fashioned friendliness".
What specific examples of "Trump treating gays like real people" are you thinking of that benefit gays and make up for Trump enabling discrimination against them and banning gay marriage?
You're always telling us how you're so much smarter than us Wyatt/bad anonymous, help us out:
Tell us some specific examples of "Trump treating gays like real people" that benefit gays and make up for Trump enabling discrimination against them and banning gay marriage - I can't think of any.
C'mon Wyatt, give us some examples.
That wasn't just lying empty bullshit, was it?
That'd be so unlike you.
Hahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
C'mon Wyatt, give us some examples.
Its starting to look like you were "bearing false witness against your neighbour", that would mean you're not a christian, right?
"What these people did for each other says far more about who we are as Americans than the cowardly acts of a killer ever could," Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, sniffing back tears, after a lot of white people got shot in Las Vegas.
"It's a great trip. Your weather is second to none but every once in a while you get hit,"said President Trump in Puerto Rico, bragging about his administration's performance in a catastrophe that is many orders of magnitude worse than what happened in Las Vegas, and is getting worse by the day, but happened to an island full of Hispanics.
the previous poster is a pathetic piece of crap
Does the Democratic Party have a constitutional right to win a minimum number of elections? Of course not, but that’s what lawyers for a group of Wisconsin Democrats effectively argued at the Supreme Court in Gill v. Whitford. Despite decades of experience and legal precedent to the contrary, Democrats are asking the Court to enter the political realm and find for the first time that a legislative map is unconstitutional on partisan-related grounds. The Supreme Court should take a pass.
In the Badger State, which voted for President Trump and where Republicans hold nearly all statewide elected offices, Democrats ask the Supreme Court to overturn Wisconsin’s legislative map because their party has failed to translate its statewide vote totals into a proportionate number of wins in the state legislature.
Never mind that America has a winner-take-all system, where winning individual elections, not running up votes, is what matters. Or that Wisconsin Democrats cluster predominately in the cities of Milwaukee and Madison, while Republicans are spread out more evenly (and therefore are more competitive) throughout the state. Or that significant crossover voting exists in Wisconsin, where the majority of voters in fifteen separate legislative districts split their ticket between 2012 and 2016 – choosing one party’s candidate for President or Governor and the opposing party’s candidate to represent them in the state legislature.
And never mind that the law is not on their side. Nothing in the Constitution, or indeed the entire political history of the United States, suggests that a party has a legal right to win individual legislative elections proportionate to its statewide vote total.
In 2004, a four-Justice plurality in Vieth v. Jubelirer rejected a partisan gerrymandering claim against Pennsylvania’s congressional map. In doing so, they voted to overturn Davis v. Bandemer, a 1986 case in which the court upheld the map at issue but found that partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable in theory, provided some “judicially discernible and manageable standard” exists for reviewing them.
Naturally, the Justices in Bandemer could not agree on what that standard was, befuddling the lower courts for years. Citing “eighteen years of judicial effort with virtually nothing to show for it” as far as identifying that standard, the plurality in Vieth threw up its arms and declared partisan gerrymandering claims nonjusticiable altogether.
Justice Kennedy concurred with the outcome in Vieth, but left open the possibility that plaintiffs might someday be able to bring such a partisan gerrymandering claim “if some limited and precise rationale were found to correct an established violation of the Constitution in some redistricting cases.” For this reason, as is so often the case, the plaintiffs pin their hopes on Justice Kennedy.
The problem is that no “limited and precise rationale” exists today, nor will it likely ever. This time around, Democrats ask the Court to embrace their latest pet theory of “partisan symmetry” as measured by the “efficiency gap,” which assumes that parties should win roughly the same proportion of legislative seats as the total votes received across an entire state. Much has been written about the efficiency gap, but suffice it to say that not even the lower court, which found for the plaintiffs, chose to adopt it, while dissenting Judge Griesbach dismissed it as having “substantial theoretical and practical limitations that render it unsuitable for the task at hand.”
But even if the Justices could divine some “judicially discernible and manageable standard,” there remains a bigger problem for the Plaintiffs: Partisan gerrymandering of the kind alleged in Wisconsin simply does not violate any “well-developed and familiar” Constitutional right, which Justice Kennedy himself identified in Vieth as necessary to prove.
It is hard to imagine how equal-protection, free-speech, or free-association standards are violated in Wisconsin, or can ever be violated through partisan gerrymandering in the context of a robust, two-party system. As Justice Kennedy noted in Vieth, political classifications are permissible in the context of redistricting, because they are not “unrelated to the [legitimate] aims of apportionment.” Nevertheless, the plaintiffs would have the Supreme Court treat partisan gerrymandering, which is not unconstitutional, akin to racial gerrymandering, which emphatically is – as if the Democratic party were a “discrete and insular minority” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Far from “well-developed and familiar,” this is outlandish.
Second, partisan intent does not place a meaningful burden on any fundamental right or liberty interest. Simply put, nothing stands between the voter and the ballot box, and all votes are counted equally. What Wisconsin Democrats demand is a right, not for Democrats to participate in elections, but to win them.
Third, partisan districting places no burden on First Amendment speech or association. Legislative map-drawing does not prevent anyone from speaking or associating with, or voting for, the candidate or party of their choice. Nor do the plaintiffs claim this; instead, they assert a right for their candidates to be elected and for government control. Good luck finding that in the First Amendment.
And so, Democrats ask the Court to adopt a standard which is neither “judicially discernible” nor “manageable” in order to enforce a constitutional “right” which does not exist. Courts should be above the political fray - holding a legislature’s redistricting plan unconstitutional because a political party is unhappy with its election results would politicize the judiciary to its detriment. The Supreme Court should reverse.
if Dems keep desperately insisting that the most gay-friendly President, ever, is also racist, they have no hope that the average American, who knows he's not racist, will vote for them
America is an extremely tolerant and open society where opportunity abounds for all
Americans are sick of the lie that it is otherwise
Justin Timberlake is finalizing a deal to perform at halftime of Super Bowl LII in 2018
Way too early for this kind of stuff, but I had been thinking that there was no way Donald Trump would be re-elected.
He was elected to shake up Washington, and he’s certainly done that. But nothing is getting done and his superficial leadership is much to blame. After four years of having a Tweeter-in-Chief, surely the American people would want some stability from their president.
My anticipated scenario went like this: After three years, Trump declares victory. Announces that America is now great again, and his job is finished. Lesser mortals, such as Mike Pence, can take it from here.
So, he’s not running for re-election.
Of late, however, I’ve revised my outlook. I now believe that the left will re-elect Trump. The ruction over NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem illustrates the point.
The left has talked itself into believing that Trump’s alleged appeals to white racism were what put him over the top.
More astute psephologists have pointed out that the actual difference was made by people in industrial states who previously had voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, but switched to Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Hard to attribute those decisions to white racism.
Nevertheless, the left now interprets all of Trump’s actions through the prism of perceived appeals to white racism. If Trump were to tweet, “It’s a lovely day in Washington,” the left would denounce it as a dog whistle to white supremacists.
Which brings us to the NFL ruction. Players began kneeling during the national anthem reportedly to protest what they regard as racial injustice in the United States. Trump denounced them in Trumpian fashion.
According to the left, since the players were protesting racial injustice, Trump was endorsing racial injustice by criticizing them. There goes that dog whistle!
To most Americans, that’s nuts.
I’m not much of a flag waver. And I’ve never really understood why sporting events begin with the playing of the national anthem. Doesn’t seem a particularly apposite occasion for a display of patriotic fidelity.
But it is part of American tradition. And traditions matter.
You don’t have to be a racist to find galling the spectacle of pampered athletics, making millions of dollars playing a game, hosted in taxpayer-subsidized stadiums, benefiting from an antitrust exemption, ostentatiously exempting themselves from the traditional display of fidelity to our country.
The argument by some that the protest isn’t really about the flag and national anthem rings hollow. If you do it during the national anthem, it is about the flag and the national anthem.
People have a constitutional right to refuse to say the pledge of allegiance or stand during the national anthem. Contrary to what some commentators have said, the owners couldn’t require the players to stand. And it is doubtful that the owners could fire them for failing to do so.
Keep playing the race card, and Trump wins
Of course, the owners would never even give a thought to doing that, and they shouldn’t.
Instead, the owners have signaled solidarity with their protesting players against Trump.
What is bewildering is that the NFL and the left seem to believe that they are winning this fight with Trump.
Let’s see. Honor the flag and the national anthem. Or not.
Yep, Trump is certainly on the wrong side of that issue.
A reaction against political correctness was certainly part of what propelled Trump to victory. Most leaders on the right flinch from it. Trump is impervious, even contemptuous, of it.
There are small pockets of white supremacists in the United States. They are unimportant.
Generally speaking, white Middle Americans aren’t racists. They don’t long for a return to Jim Crow. They’re just sick of having identity and grievance politics thrown in their faces all the time.
If the left continues to tell Middle Americans they are racists, Trump will be re-elected
"I’m not much of a flag waver. And I’ve never really understood why sporting events begin with the playing of the national anthem. Doesn’t seem a particularly apposite occasion for a display of patriotic fidelity.
But it is part of American tradition. And traditions matter."
Where did you study the history of playing of the national anthem, Trump U?
Here's a timeline of how the national anthem became a sports tradition in the first place:
-1814: Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner, while watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore.
-1889: Secretary of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy called for the song to be played whenever the American flag was raised.
-1916: President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order declaring the "Star Spangled Banner" the American national anthem.
-1918: The song was played spontaneously during the seventh-inning stretch of game one of the World Series between the Cubs and Red Sox, while the country had been in World War I for a year and half. After this, the song was often played on holidays or special occasions in many baseball parks.
-1931: Congress passed an act officially confirming the "Star Spangled Banner" as the national anthem, and President Hebert Hoover signed it into law.
-1941-42: Playing the national anthem before the start of regular season baseball games became the standard. And with the U.S. in World War II now, the National Football League also included the playing of the anthem before games.
-1945: NFL commissioner Elmer Layden said, "The playing of the national anthem should be as much a part of every game as the kickoff. We must not drop it simply because the war is over. We should never forget what it stands for."
-2009: NFL players began standing on the field for the national anthem before the start of primetime games. Before this, players would stay in their locker rooms except during the Super Bowl and after 9/11.
-2015: Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake released a report revealing that the Department of Defense had spent $6.8 million between 2012 and 2015 on what the senators called "paid patriotism" events before professional sports games, including American flag displays, honoring of military members, reenlistment ceremonies, etc. The DoD justified the money paid to 50 professional sports teams by calling it part of their recruiting strategy. However, many teams had these ceremonies without compensation from the military, and there was nothing found in the contracts that mandated that players stand during the anthem.
"Where did you study the history of playing of the national anthem, Trump U?"
I never studied it anywhere, you moron.
Please let us know where you did.
Or, actually, where you studied anything.
TTF has tried to create the impression that the election result in 2016 was orchestrated by the Russian government. Here's comment from one of the most deceitful of the TTF propagandists, Priya:
"Without a doubt Trump would not have been elected if it weren't for the tremendous Russian effort involving thousands of trolls to sway the election."
Congressional investigators have found this to be not true, raising the question of whether blogs like TTF have participated in the Russian efforts to sow doubts in the public mind about our Democratic institutions. Maybe Congress should look into it:
"The Facebook and other internet ads that Kremlin-linked operatives ran during the presidential election campaign were intended to “create chaos” across the political spectrum, not back a specific candidate, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee said Wednesday.
In the first extended update from Congress’ highest-profile probe into Russian meddling in the election, Sen. Richard Burr, North Carolina Republican and chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, said months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign.
In recent weeks, the sprawling investigation has zeroed in on the social media and tech firms that dominate the internet, including Google and Twitter. Ranked among the country’s largest spenders on federal lobbying, the companies initially balked at cooperating until Facebook succumbed to mounting bipartisan pressure to provide more details about the unprecedented surge of Russian propaganda ad buys last year.
The lawmakers described a broad-brush approach to stoke social divides and undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system.
“The subject matter of the ads seems to have been to create chaos in every group that they could possibly identify in America,” said Mr. Burr, referring to some 3,000 ads that Facebook turned over to the committee this week.
Ever buy on Amazon? This tip will save you a fortune
“We are making progress in a careful way,” Sen. Susan M. Collins, Maine Republican, said.
“My major concern is that the public needs to have a better understanding of what happened and that we need to take steps to harden our electoral systems before next year’s elections.”
Mr. Burr had expressed hope that the inquiry would conclude by the year’s end but said he had no definitive timeline and that 25 more interviews were scheduled.
He and Mr. Warner have been lauded for running an investigation seen as unified and focused compared with a more partisan probe in the House. Still, Mr. Burr issued a sober warning for potential witnesses to internet efforts to undermine democracy to cooperate with the remainder of the inquiry.
“I strongly suggest you come in and speak with us,” he said. “If we believe that you have something valuable to bring to the committee, if you don’t voluntarily do it, I will assure you today you will be compelled to do it.”
In 1973, the SCOTUS ruled that abortions could not be outlawed before the time the unborn child reaches viability. The age specified then has now been made obsolete by medical advances. Congress is working on legislation to address this issue:
"The House of Representatives passed legislation Tuesday that would criminalize abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
The bill passed the House by a vote of 237 for and 189 against, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, has support from the White House.
The issue of abortion has once again been brought to the forefront of national conversations since President Donald Trump assumed office. Trump issued support for the bill even before he won the election. In a letter dated September 2016 that was sent to anti-abortion leaders inviting individuals to join the campaign's "Pro-Life Coalition," Trump said he was committed to "signing into law the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would end painful late-term abortions nationwide."
The White House reiterated its support in a statement of administration policy issued Monday: "The administration strongly supports H.R. 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, and applauds the House of Representatives for continuing its efforts to secure critical pro-life protections."
Some of Trump's top advisers, including Vice President Mike Pence, are vocally opposed to abortion. Trump also tapped Neil Gorsuch to the US Supreme Court, which anti-abortion advocates saw as a win.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced last week that the House would vote on H.R. 36, calling it legislation that "will respect the sanctity of life and stop needless suffering."
"It will protect those children who science has proven can feel pain, and give them a chance to grow and live full and happy lives," McCarthy's statement said. "We have an obligation to speak and defend for those who can't speak for themselves."
Similar legislation is already enacted in several states.
"Congressional investigators have found this to be not true"
Congressional investigators like Devin Nunes who served on the Trump transition team and did all he could to taint his own Congressional investigation by holding press conferences without his Democratic vice chair citing supposed evidence supplied by the White House itself?
House Intel Chairman Steps Aside From Russia Investigation Amid Ethics Probe
Rep. Devin Nunes said he is temporarily relinquishing his leadership of the wide-ranging investigation.
Thank goodness for the bipartisan efforts in the Senate:
Senate panel has not decided whether Trump campaign colluded with Russia: 'The issue of collusion is still open'
"The Senate Intelligence Committee has not reached a conclusion whether the Trump campaign cooperated with Moscow during the 2016 election, the panel’s leaders said Wednesday, distancing themselves from President Trump’s claim that the issue is a “hoax.”
“The committee continues to look into all evidence to see if there was any hint of collusion,” Chairman Richard M. Burr (R-N.C.) told a news conference with Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the panel’s top Democrat. “The issue of collusion is still open.”
The committee, one of four congressional panels investigating Russian interference in last year’s election, has reached “a general consensus” that it agrees with the U.S. intelligence assessment from January that indicated Moscow carried out a wide-ranging campaign to influence American voters before they went to the polls, Burr said.
The Senate panel hoped to finish its inquiry and issue findings by the end of December, Burr said. But the probe has expanded into new areas, including Russia’s clandestine use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media, leaving the timetable uncertain, he said.
Warner stressed that Russian attempts to meddle in U.S. elections have not stopped, making it important for the committee to complete its investigation before states hold primaries ahead of the 2018 midterm congressional elections.
“You cannot walk away from this and believe that Russia is not currently active in trying to create chaos in our electoral process,” Warner said.
Russian intelligence services were “determined” and “clever,” Burr said, and state and federal political campaigns and election officials need to treat the threat “very seriously.”
Senate investigators have interviewed more than 150 witnesses, including some Trump family members and campaign aides. They also have reviewed 100,000 pages of documents, including emails, phone records, campaign papers and intelligence reports, the lawmakers said.
But the panel also has run into roadblocks...
...The Senate Committee is leaving some areas that it initially had investigated to Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, including Trump’s firing of FBI Director James B. Comey in May, Burr said.
Mueller is conducting a criminal investigation into whether Trump colluded with Russia and other issues, including whether the firing of Comey involved obstruction of justice..."
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/10/05/trump-dossier-on-russia-links-now-part-of-special-counsels-probe/23233615/
TTF would like to sow confusion and undermine confidence in a democracy that chose not to endorse Hillary Clinton and the gay agenda.
to reiterate:
"In the first extended update from Congress’ highest-profile probe into Russian meddling in the election, Sen. Richard Burr, North Carolina Republican and chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, said months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign."
That's right. Nothing has been found after months of investigation.
TTF's response is to cherry pick this statement from the chairman of the committee:
“The committee continues to look into all evidence to see if there was any hint of collusion,” Chairman Richard M. Burr (R-N.C.) told a news conference with Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the panel’s top Democrat. “The issue of collusion is still open.”
Obviously, the committee will continue its work to dismiss the false allegations of irresponsible and discouraged Democratic progressives.
But there is no universe where "months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign" should be encouraging for Democrats, who, as always, hope for the worst for democracy.
Pathetic.
"TTF's response is to cherry pick this statement from the chairman of the committee:"
Except I, a human being who is not an organization, didn't just quote one statement from a published news article. I cited eleven paragraphs.
It's clear as day it is the right wing TTF troll who is doing the cherry picking here, his usual MO.
The troll cherry picked the second paragraph out of this linked to published article:
"The Senate Intelligence Committee has not reached a conclusion whether the Trump campaign cooperated with Moscow during the 2016 election, the panel’s leaders said Wednesday, distancing themselves from President Trump’s claim that the issue is a “hoax.”
CHERRY PICKING AHEAD***“The committee continues to look into all evidence to see if there was any hint of collusion,” Chairman Richard M. Burr (R-N.C.) told a news conference with Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the panel’s top Democrat. “The issue of collusion is still open.”***END OF CHERRY PICKED PORTION
The committee, one of four congressional panels investigating Russian interference in last year’s election, has reached “a general consensus” that it agrees with the U.S. intelligence assessment from January that indicated Moscow carried out a wide-ranging campaign to influence American voters before they went to the polls, Burr said.
The Senate panel hoped to finish its inquiry and issue findings by the end of December, Burr said. But the probe has expanded into new areas, including Russia’s clandestine use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media, leaving the timetable uncertain, he said.
Warner stressed that Russian attempts to meddle in U.S. elections have not stopped, making it important for the committee to complete its investigation before states hold primaries ahead of the 2018 midterm congressional elections.
“You cannot walk away from this and believe that Russia is not currently active in trying to create chaos in our electoral process,” Warner said.
Russian intelligence services were “determined” and “clever,” Burr said, and state and federal political campaigns and election officials need to treat the threat “very seriously.”
Senate investigators have interviewed more than 150 witnesses, including some Trump family members and campaign aides. They also have reviewed 100,000 pages of documents, including emails, phone records, campaign papers and intelligence reports, the lawmakers said.
But the panel also has run into roadblocks...
...The Senate Committee is leaving some areas that it initially had investigated to Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, including Trump’s firing of FBI Director James B. Comey in May, Burr said.
Mueller is conducting a criminal investigation into whether Trump colluded with Russia and other issues, including whether the firing of Comey involved obstruction of justice..."
"Except I, a human being who is not an organization, didn't just quote one statement from a published news article. I cited eleven paragraphs."
but only one that mentioned collusion and diverted from the basic truth that, according to both the top Democrat and the top Republican on the committtee "months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign."
simply they'll continue the investigation and do due diligence but there is no evidence that the wild allegations of the losers in the last November's election, both candidates and their media supporters, are ture
"It's clear as day it is the right wing TTF troll who is doing the cherry picking here, his usual MO."
and, yet, as we see, it is you who are trying to create a misimpression by taking quotes out of context
and your goal, to undermine confidence in our electoral system, is exactly what the Senators say Russia was trying to do
imagine that
(Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Justice has reversed course on whether federal law banning sex discrimination in the workplace provides protections for transgender employees, saying in a memo that it does not.
The memo sent to U.S. Attorneys’ offices on Wednesday by Attorney General Jeff Sessions Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 only prohibits discrimination on the basis of a worker’s biological sex, and not their "gender identity."
Sessions rescinded an Obama administration memo from 2014 that said Title VII does protect transgender people, a position also taken by several federal appeals courts in recent years.
Department spokesman Devin O‘Malley said in a statement the government cannot expand the law beyond what Congress had intended.
“Unfortunately, the last administration abandoned that fundamental principle, which necessitated today’s action,” he said.
when you think about it, TTF is beyond deplorable
waaaay beyond!!
during the campaign, TTF-supported Hillary repeatedly suggested that the Bill of Rights be amended to overturn to eliminate Citizens United by restricting free speech
of course, all campaign finance laws are basically an infringement on the free speech rights of the anyone with expendable income
now, additionally, they want to repeal the second amendment
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/opinion/guns-second-amendment-nra.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion-columnists
and, of course, when the SCOTUS rules soon that bakers shouldn't be forced to participate in gay marriages if it violates their religious beliefs, TTF will be crying to to overturn the establishment clause
then, we also see that TTF, like the Russian government, continually tries to undermine confidence in our electoral system
and it dawns on you
the only American thing they are committed to is the soil
If you assume that the United States stands in opposition to countries using the death penalty against LGBTQ people whose only “crime” is their sexuality, you may need to adjust your expectations.
This past Friday, the United Nations passed a resolution condemning nations that apply the death penalty in a “discriminatory manner,” particularly against gay people, women and the disabled. Although it seemed like a fairly straightforward and decent stance to take, the U.S. voted “no” on this human right’s issue.
Nations in Europe, North America and South America almost uniformly approved the position. The only other country in the west aside from the U.S. that didn’t vote in favor of the resolution was Cuba, which opted to abstain from the vote.
In voting no, the United States joined countries like Saudi Arabia and Iraq that, to this day, actively execute LGBTQ people. (Other countries that are known to do this – Iran, Sudan and Yemen – were not part of the vote.) Some countries like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which still have laws that allow gay people to be punished by death on the books but don’t actually do it in practice, also voted no.
While the U.S. certainly has a long way to go toward fully accepting and promoting equality for LGBTQ citizens within its own borders, it still seems ludicrous to think that this country can’t take the obvious viewpoint that people don’t deserve to die because of their sexuality.
For more information, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia#LGBT_rights
""In the first extended update from Congress’ highest-profile probe into Russian meddling in the election, Sen. Richard Burr, North Carolina Republican and chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, said months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign.""
and
"according to both the top Democrat and the top Republican on the committtee "months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign."
Correction:
"In the first extended update from Congress’ highest-profile probe into Russian meddling in the election, Sen. Richard Burr, North Carolina Republican and chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, said months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign, but the inquiry is continuing."
Your cherry-picked plagiarized source from which you omitted the "but the inquiry is continuing" portion is the second paragraph here:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/4/russia-still-trying-create-chaos-us-elections-sena/
In fact, here's all of it:
"The Facebook and other internet ads that Kremlin-linked operatives ran during the presidential election campaign were intended to “create chaos” across the political spectrum, not back a specific candidate, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee said Wednesday.
In the first extended update from Congress’ highest-profile probe into Russian meddling in the election, Sen. Richard Burr, North Carolina Republican and chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, said months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign, but the inquiry is continuing.
In recent weeks, the sprawling investigation has zeroed in on the social media and tech firms that dominate the internet, including Google and Twitter. Ranked among the country’s largest spenders on federal lobbying, the companies initially balked at cooperating until Facebook succumbed to mounting bipartisan pressure to provide more details about the unprecedented surge of Russian propaganda ad buys last year.
While special counsel Robert Mueller investigates suspected ties between the Kremlin and Mr. Trump’s campaign, the lawmakers described a broad-brush approach to stoke social divides and undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system.
“The subject matter of the ads seems to have been to create chaos in every group that they could possibly identify in America,” said Mr. Burr, referring to some 3,000 ads that Facebook turned over to the committee this week.
At a packed Capitol Hill press conference, Mr. Warner said Twitter’s briefing to lawmakers was disappointing given the gravity of the situation."
"Mr. Warner said investigators were waiting for more information from Twitter and that he wants Facebook to release the ads already linked to Russian operatives. He added that the social media companies have more work to do to figure out how they have been exploited.
Mr. Burr said the companies will testify in an open hearing later this month. Other committee members applauded the focus on the internet.
“We are making progress in a careful way,” Sen. Susan M. Collins, Maine Republican, told The Washington Times. “My major concern is that the public needs to have a better understanding of what happened and that we need to take steps to harden our electoral systems before next year’s elections.”
Sowing division
The Senate committee, which launched its investigation last spring, has conducted more than 100 interviews over roughly 250 hours and generated more than 4,000 transcript pages. It has also reviewed more than 100,000 pages of documents, Mr. Burr and Mr. Warner said.
Mr. Burr and Mr. Warner largely backed the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions that Russia did try to meddle in the presidential campaign — though they painted a portrait of an American competitor intent on sowing divisions.
They also said they have received generally good cooperation from the Obama and Trump administrations but have “hit a wall” with Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence agent whose dossier on Mr. Trump sparked a series of embarrassing — and apparently untrue — stories about his ties to Russia as a private businessman.
Mr. Steele has declined to be interviewed, Mr. Burr said, hurting the panel’s ability to piece together the background of the dossier.
The leaders said their committee is still investigating suspected collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
“Let me be pretty clear: The issue of collusion is still open,” Mr. Burr said.
Regarding scrutiny involving former FBI Director James B. Comey, who appeared before the panel after he was fired by Mr. Trump in May, Mr. Burr said the probe had “exhausted every person they could speak with” and that Mr. Mueller and the Department of Justice were now leading that investigation.
Mr. Burr had expressed hope that the inquiry would conclude by the year’s end but said he had no definitive timeline and that 25 more interviews were scheduled.
He and Mr. Warner have been lauded for running an investigation seen as unified and focused compared with a more partisan probe in the House. Still, Mr. Burr issued a sober warning for potential witnesses to cooperate with the remainder of the inquiry.
“I strongly suggest you come in and speak with us,” he said. “If we believe that you have something valuable to bring to the committee, if you don’t voluntarily do it, I will assure you today you will be compelled to do it.
"but the inquiry is continuing" is a meaningless phrase
it's already known that the inquiry isn't finished yet
significantly, it's yet to lead anywhere at all
that's the part of this that's news
looks like TTF owes an apology to DJ Trump:
"Fate has not given Donald J. Trump a soft transition into his new job. The most active American hurricane season in 12 years, rocket-launching North Korea, horrific acts of terror from London to Las Vegas – the latter being the worst mass shooting in American history -- have tested the mettle of our nation’s first neophyte commander-in-chief.
Recently Puerto Rico was ravaged by two consecutive hurricanes, Irma and Maria. Puerto Rico was, sadly, as Carl Cannon of RealClearPolitics wrote, “underwater before it was underwater.” The island is $74 billion in debt and its infrastructure was in shambles before the storms -- and young people were already fleeing en masse for job opportunities on the mainland, especially Florida.
How, then, have local leaders responded to this epic crisis, and how has President Trump? The mainstream media commenced on a rather predictable, yet ghoulish, mission to fashion this Puerto Rican tragedy as “Trump’s Katrina.” Instead of assessing the actual challenges of delivering massive humanitarian aid at rapid pace to an island that already lacks basic road and electrical infrastructure commensurate with an American territory, the anti-Trump media blame-game found a poster woman in Mayor Cruz of San Juan.
Never mind her 24 percent approval rating among constituents or her obnoxious support for convicted anti-American terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera, Mayor Cruz’s anti-Trump tirades and strange T-shirts claiming Puerto Ricans are literally dying because of our president were enough to endear her to most media.
The reality on the ground belies such shameful grandstanding. Despite a calamitous storm, over two-thirds of all gas stations are operational on the island, along with the majority of grocery stores and big box retailers. More than 12,000 federal employees are providing aid, more than half of it from the U.S. military. Things are far from normal in Puerto Rico, but the response from the Trump administration has been massive and swift. Don’t take my word for it. As the Democratic Gov. Ricardo Rossello told Fox Business Channel host Maria Bartiromo, “The president and the administration, every time we’ve asked them to execute, they’ve executed quickly.” Similar praise emanated from U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp, who told Trump directly: “Because of your commitment, Mr. President, we’re talking about opening schools and welcoming cruise ships back.”
Finally, the well-worn, tired idea that Donald Trump somehow neglects Puerto Rico because he’s only worried about white Americans flies in the face of massive aid to storm-ravaged Houston, perhaps mainland America’s most diverse major city, which is 25 percent African-American and 37 percent Latino.
The truth is that Mother Nature can be cruel, and she’s been most unkind this season. Those, like Congressman Gutierrez and Mayor Cruz, who seek to take political advantage of such poor fortune should be ashamed. President Trump and his team should be highly praised for an impressive response to historic challenges so early on in the game.
"“We are making progress in a careful way,” Sen. Susan M. Collins, Maine Republican, told The Washington Times. “My major concern is that the public needs to have a better understanding of what happened and that we need to take steps to harden our electoral systems before next year’s elections.”"
Susan Collins is one of the creepier politicians in Washington
she's planning to run for governor of maine
let's hope she wins and stops messing up our national government
What could "harden our electoral systems" mean in the context of Russian ads on the internet? It's hard to see how it could mean anything but governmental regulation of free speech. Russia should be free to place any ads it wants in any media that will sell it to them. Any falsehoods can be exposed by other participants in a free society.
Simply, Dems need to stop making excuses for Hillary.
And, again, the Senators made clear that what they've seen indicates not a preference for Trump in Russian actions but an effort to sow division in America.
They've always done that. in the 60s, they infiltrated and promoted all kinds of leftist organizations.
Nothing is new here except that Hillary the Incompetent was found to be an empress with no clothes
"but the inquiry is continuing" is a meaningless phrase
No it isn't.
It means your statement, "according to both the top Democrat and the top Republican on the committtee "months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign" is missing the ending, which is the equivalent of "so far" or "yet."
It does not yet mean there was no collusion between Russia and Donald Trump's campaign.
It means there was no such collusion found so far, but the investigation continues.
It demonstrates you continue to use what you call "appropriate" lies to make your bogus points.
The unemployment rate fell to a 16-year low of 4.2 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
Additionally, the closely watched hourly wages figure jumped higher, to an annualized rate of 2.9 percent.
Economists had expected the unemployment rate to hold steady at 4.4 percent. It declined even as the labor-force participation rate rose to 63.1 percent, its highest level all year and the best reading since March 2014.
An alternate number that includes discouraged workers as well as those working part-time for economic reasons also tumbled, falling from 8.6 percent to 8.3 percent, its lowest reading since June 2007.
The number was expected to be lower than usual due to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which hammered Texas and Florida, respectively, as well as other states. The storm's effects were obvious — eating and drinking establishments lost 105,000 positions as workers were laid off due to damage from the record-breaking hurricanes. Harvey and Irma's effects weren't all negative when it came to jobs — Wall Street-related finance positions grew by a net 10,000 thanks to an increase of 11,000 for insurance carriers and related activities.
Revisions will bear watching in coming months, as the final payrolls number comes from the Labor Department's byzantine estimation methods. The department's household survey showed the actual level of employed Americans grew by 906,000 while the unemployment rolls fell by 331,000. The report indicated a record 154.3 million Americans at work.
Job gains for the month came from health care, at 23,000, transportation and warehousing with 22,000 and professional and business services, which added 13,000.
Many economists were prepared to dismiss the report due to the hurricanes. However, one number sure to garner attention was the wages pickup.
The BLS reported that average hourly earnings were up by 12 cents on the month to $26.55, equating to a 2.9 percent gain for the year. That's well above the 2 percent target the Federal Reserve sets for healthy inflation growth, meaning that the central bank is more likely to approve another interest rate hike at its December meeting.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After discussing Iran and North Korea with U.S. military leaders on Thursday, President Donald Trump posed for a photo with them before dinner and declared the moment “the calm before the storm.”
“You guys know what this represents?” Trump said after journalists gathered in the White House state dining room to photograph him and first lady Melania Trump with the uniformed military leaders and their spouses.
“Maybe it’s the calm before the storm,” he said.
What storm?
“You’ll find out,” Trump told questioning reporters.
Classical music played in the background and tables were set in the nearby Blue Room for a fancy meal.
The White House did not immediately reply to a request to clarify Trump’s remark.
Earlier in the evening, while seated with the top defense officials in the cabinet room, Trump talked about the threat from North Korea and preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
“In North Korea, our goal is denuclearization,” he said. “We cannot allow this dictatorship to threaten our nation or our allies with unimaginable loss of life. We will do what we must do to prevent that from happening. And it will be done, if necessary, believe me.”
During his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month, Trump said the United States would “totally destroy” North Korea if needed to defend itself or U.S. allies.
Trump has filled top posts within his administration with military generals, including his chief of staff, retired General John Kelly, and national security adviser, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster. McMaster, who normally dresses in civilian clothes at the White House, wore his uniform for the meeting.
Without being specific, Trump pressed the leaders to be faster at providing him with “military options” when needed.
“Moving forward, I also expect you to provide me with a broad range of military options, when needed, at a much faster pace. I know that government bureaucracy is slow, but I am depending on you to overcome the obstacles of bureaucracy,” he said during their cabinet room meeting.
This is a big relief! I was worried Northam might win. With Hillary involved I feel much better. She's what's known in Vegas as a "cooler": she spreads loser to everything she touches:
Hillary Clinton plans to return to the campaign trail Wednesday night, to headline a New York fundraiser for Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ralph Northam.
Clinton said after her failed 2016 White House bid that she’d never run again for public office. But she seems to remain popular and bankable in some party circles. Her ongoing 25-city, North American tour promoting her book “What Happened” is selling tickets costing several hundred dollars apiece.
Northam, raising money in the final stretch, is in a tight gubernatorial race with Republican nominee Ed Gillespie. They are competing for the open seat of Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a long-time Clinton family fundraiser who must leave the Virginia governor’s mansion because of term limits.
The Trump administration said Friday it will let a vast universe of employers duck Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate by claiming a religious or moral objection, a long-awaited move that will enthuse pro-life conservatives.
Under the new regulation, employers who assert a good-faith objection to having their insurance plans pay for contraception will be exempt, the Health and Human Services Department said.
The Trump administration said colleges, faith-based nonprofits and for-profit companies can now avoid the mandate by claiming a religious or moral objection instead of submitting the paperwork.
Sessions Issues Long-Feared And Sweeping “License To Discriminate” Against LGBT Americans
But Trump is "the most gay friendly presidential candidate ever" and "treats gays like real people which no president has ever done before" so screwing over innocent LGBT citizens left and right is best for them....somehow.
Republicans:
33,000 gun deaths a year in the U.S.
"Don't talk about guns".
---------------------------------
31 cases of voter impersonation since 2000
"Voter fraud!"
You gotta love the hypocrisy of Republicans like Wyatt/bad anonymous:
Disingenuously railing against abortion but then cheering on actions that make birth control less available which would reduce abortions.
They don't really give a damn about "killing babies", their real concern is a desire to oppress and control women and punish them for having sex for pleasure rather than procreation.
Because to Republicans sex is a necessary evil that should be prevented at all costs unless a woman is getting pregnant.
the brilliant, handsome and alarmingly charming anon said:
""but the inquiry is continuing" is a meaningless phrase"
the ugly TTFer said
"No it isn't. "
yes, it is
"It means your statement, "according to both the top Democrat and the top Republican on the committtee "months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign" is missing the ending, which is the equivalent of "so far" or "yet.""
Well, "so far" and "yet" are meaningless too.
You could say the same about every person on the globe
months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and the Los Angeles Dodgers
months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and the Clinton crime syndicate
months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and Hershey chocolate
months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and the Nobel Prize Committee
months of investigation have not identified any collusion between Russia and Tulane University
see how much this is?
it could go on all day!
"It does not yet mean there was no collusion between Russia and Donald Trump's campaign."
it also doesn't there was no collusion between Russia and Kershaw, Hillary, Hershey, Nobel, or Tulane
so what?
"It means there was no such collusion found so far, but the investigation continues."
any time a false allegation is made, there will be an investigation
means nothing
"It demonstrates you continue to use what you call "appropriate" lies to make your bogus points."
I didn't lie about anything but you have implied that Trump colluded with Russia
no proof of that but lies necessitate investigation
TTF is just mad at Trump because he is the most gay friendly President ever and TTF prefers gays to be ostracized and treated differently because if gays aren't treated that way, TTF has no reason to exist
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to soon formally repeal the Clean Power Plan (CPP) in what would be one of the biggest blows yet to former President Barack Obama’s legacy on climate change.
A draft proposal of the EPA’s conclusions, leaked to news outlets over the past 24 hours, argues that the plan — which would limit carbon emissions from power plants and, in the process, drastically reduce the amount of coal-generated electricity in the U.S. — goes beyond the bounds of federal law and unnecessarily hikes energy prices for consumers.
“The EPA proposes to determine that the CPP is not within Congress’s grant of authority to the agency under the governing statute. It is not in the interests of the EPA, or in accord with its mission of environmental protection consistent with the rule of law, to expend its resources along the path of implementing a rule, receiving and passing judgment on state plans, or promulgating federal plans in furtherance of a policy that is not within the bounds of our statutory authority,” the agency says in the document, which is the conclusion of a months-long review of the policy that started shortly after EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt took charge in February.
“The EPA is proposing to repeal the CPP in its entirety,” the agency says in its draft conclusion.
The CPP, the most controversial of all the environmental measures put forth during the Obama administration, has never gone into effect. Legal challenges and a stay by the Supreme Court kept the plan from becoming a reality.
Amid the tragic events in Las Vegas this week, what would otherwise constitute a major news event in Washington received only passing notice. Which was perfectly fine with the mainstream media since it would prefer to ignore the news anyway. It does not hew to their carefully constructed narrative of Donald Trump as villain.
Here is the news: after an exhaustive 9-month investigation, the bipartisan leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee offered no evidence whatsoever that Trump or his associates “colluded” with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Nothing.
But wait, what about all those media stories which all but indicted and convicted President Trump for “collusion”? Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr said on Thursday that his committee’s findings would contradict some of them. "We will find that quite a few news organizations ran stories that were not factual”, he noted. Gee…what a surprise.
Yet, in a bizarre twist, the Republican and Democratic co-chairs said that the issue of collusion is “still open”. In other words, they’ve got bupkis… but they still might nose around.
The nation’s capital leaks like an old rusty bucket. And the torrent of leaks to the media on the multiple investigations into whether Trump colluded with the Russians leaves little doubt that if any evidence exists, we would surely know about it by now.
Only in Washington can you spend 9-months hunting for evidence, come up empty-handed, yet keep the probe going. It makes sense, I suppose, in the contorted ways of Congress. Why end the investigation when you can continue to squander endless taxpayer dollars chasing nonexistent evidence? After all, people keep hunting for the elusive Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster. Maybe someday…
Other Investigations
Since government redundancy is endemic on Capitol Hill, the House Intelligence Committee has been conducting a parallel investigation for the better part of a year. It, too, has come up with goose eggs. Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has flatly denied there is any evidence of “collusion.”
Even leading democrats, like Senators Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), have said they have seen no evidence of Trump- Russian collaboration. Both sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee. If such evidence existed, they would certainly know about it.
But even more compelling are the statements of senior Obama administration intelligence officials who were privy to all the information gathered by both the FBI and the alphabet soup of intel agencies which began investigating the matter more than a year ago. Take a gander at what they have said.
James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, has twice confirmed that he has seen no evidence of collusion. As the basis for his conclusion, he cited reports from the NSA, FBI and CIA. John Brennan, the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has said the same thing –no sign of “collusion.”
And then there is James Comey. When asked if Clapper’s assessment was correct, the fired FBI Director testified that Clapper was “right,” there is no known evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians.
The search for incriminating evidence has not been for lack of trying. This was underscored by the Senate Intelligence Committee when it disclosed that it had conducted in excess of 100 interviews over 250 hours, held 11 open hearings, produced more than 4,000 pages of transcripts, and reviewed some 100,000 documents. Every intel official who drafted the report on Russian election meddling was interviewed, as were all relevant Obama administration officials. Every Trump campaign official the committee wanted to hear from was questioned.
Still nothing. Zero.
The Spy Game
The Obama administration was even more aggressive in its hunt for a smoking-gun, going so far as to spy on Trump and his campaign. Recent reports reveal that the FBI “wiretapped” former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, both before and after the election, as well as Carter Page, a Trump foreign policy adviser.
While this was going on, intelligence agencies were conducting secret surveillance that captured various Trump associates, listening in on their conversations. Obama officials “unmasked” their names and leaked at least one of them, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, to the media which then published it. This constitutes a crime under federal law.
Yet amid all the spying and eavesdropping on Trump and his campaign, including his transition team, no evidence of “collusion” with the Russians has surfaced. Why? Likely because it never happened.
It is indisputable that the Russian government meddled in the 2016 election, attempting to sow chaos in our democratic process. But, as the Senate Intelligence Committee pointed out, “No vote totals were altered by Russia.” Were voters, nonetheless, unduly influenced by fake advertising on social media websites, hacked emails and other propaganda? It's unclear.
But what’s abundantly clear is that there is no evidence revealed thus far which demonstrates that the Trump campaign collaborated or conspired with Russia to influence the election. This is completely consistent with the president’s repeated insistence that he never spoke with any Russians about the election and, if someone else in his campaign did, he knew nothing about it.
Yes, the president’s son met during the campaign with a Russian lawyer who allegedly promised information on Hillary Clinton. It is not prohibited under federal election laws, as explained in earlier columns. It is perfectly legal.
It is also true that Jeff Sessions and Michael Flynn met with the Russian Ambassador, as did many democrats on Capitol Hill. Such meetings are not unusual, despite the mainstream media’s unabashed hysteria. There is no evidence the election was ever discussed.
Even if there were conversations about the campaign with the Russians, “collusion” is not a crime under America’s criminal codes, except in cases of antitrust. There is not a single statute outlawing collaboration with a foreign government in a U.S. presidential election or any election. But these legal distinctions are irrelevant if it never happened.
The special counsel investigating all matters Russia appears to be focusing on Manafort and Flynn. Should Robert Mueller decide to seek an indictment of the pair, the charges will likely have nothing to do with Russian meddling or so-called “collusion.” Their respective business dealings and financial transactions outside the Trump campaign orbit have been under scrutiny for quite some time.
The Media
Washington is a place where secrets are kept about as often as politicians keep their word. The nation’s capital leaks like an old rusty bucket. And the torrent of leaks to the media on the multiple investigations into whether Trump colluded with the Russians leaves little doubt that if any evidence exists, we would surely know about it by now.
So, when President Trump dismisses the notion of Russian “collusion” as a hoax, he is striking a resonate chord. Most in the biased mainstream media loathe it, but only because they are tone deaf. They will not be deterred in their quest to convict the president, evidence be damned.
While they are chasing hoaxes, they may as well try to hunt down Nessie in the Scottish Highlands. Or Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest.
Their chances of finding conclusive evidence is about the same as proving what has become “The Great Collusion Hoax.”
"Only in Washington can you spend 9-months hunting for evidence, come up empty-handed, yet keep the probe going. "
Oh yeah. Only in Washington but never in Trumplandia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories#Donald_Trump
We should be so proud now that the US has joined with Syria and Nicaragua, leaders in climate ignorance.
Oh, I take that back. A few weeks ago:
Nicaragua joins Paris Accord, leaving the US and Syria as lone dissenters
And let's not forget about the investigation into EPA's Bozo Administrator Pruitt's wasteful spending on travel, 24 hour protection, and a special soundproof phone booth in his office even though there already is a SCIF at EPA HQ:
Watchdog expands probe into EPA chief’s travel
"The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) internal watchdog is expanding its investigation into Administrator Scott Pruitt’s travel habits.
The EPA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) said Friday that it will now examine Pruitt’s taxpayer-funded travel through Sept. 30. It had previously limited the scope of its probe to Pruitt's travel to his home state of Oklahoma through July 31.
Pruitt has taken at least four charter or military flights, including one within Oklahoma, at a cost of more than $58,000. They included a flight from an event with President Trump in Cincinnati to New York City to catch a plane to Rome and flights to and from the Gold King Mine in Colorado.
The EPA has argued that each of Pruitt’s noncommercial flights has been necessary and justified under the agency's guidelines.
The original inspector general probe stemmed from revelations from public records requests that Pruitt frequently uses federal funds in traveling to Oklahoma around weekends for work-related purposes, then stays in Tulsa — his home town — for the weekend before returning to Washington.
“We will review supporting documentation and conduct interviews with management and staff to determine whether the EPA followed applicable policies and practices, and complied with federal requirements,” the inspector general said in the notice.
It added a new wrinkle to the controversy surrounding spending at the EPA that Democrats and critics of the Trump administration say is wasteful, such as spending nearly $25,000 on a soundproof booth for Pruitt’s office and a 24-hour security detail for the administrator that employs 18 officers.
The inspector general said in its Friday notice that the probe will continue to examine the cost and frequency of Pruitt’s trips to Oklahoma, whether appropriate agency policies were followed and whether policies should change to prevent waste, fraud and abuse..."
Thirty-five Nazis marched in Charlottesville again last night, carrying tiki-torches and chanting, “The South will rise again. Russia is our friend. The South will rise again. Woo-hoo! Wooo.”
"Thirty-five Nazis marched in Charlottesville again last night,"
fascinating
there are handful of nuts in America
just look at TTF
it's really no problem
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