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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2019/02/14/day-756/
1/ Trump will declare a national emergency to bypass Congress and build his border wall after signing the spending legislation to prevent another government shutdown. The border security compromise provides $1.375 billion for 55 miles of steel-post fencing – basically the same deal Trump rejected in December – instead of the $5.7 billion he demanded for more than 200 miles of steel or concrete wall. The emergency declaration would allow Trump to redirect funds from other parts of the government without congressional approval. The Senate advanced the spending package in an 81-16 vote. The House is expected to approve the package later tonight. (Washington Post / New York Times / CNBC / CNN / NBC News / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg)
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/politics/donald-trump-wall-funding-bill/index.html
2/ A federal judge ruled that Paul Manafort violated the terms of his cooperation deal by repeatedly lying to Robert Mueller and a grand jury about "his interactions and communications with [Konstantin] Kilimnik," a longtime aide who the FBI assessed to have ties to Russian intelligence. Judge Amy Berman Jackson found that Manafort also intentionally lied about $125,000 he received for legal bills and about another unnamed Justice Department criminal investigation. Manafort will not be able to retract his guilty plea, but he will still be required to hold up his end of the plea deal. The ruling does free Mueller's office from having to comply with the obligations in Manafort's cooperation agreement, notably offering Manafort a reduced sentence for his cooperation. The breach of the cooperation deal after his guilty plea could add years to Manafort's prison sentence, having been convicted last year of eight felonies, including tax and bank fraud. Manafort later pleaded guilty to two additional conspiracy counts. (CNN / Washington Post / New York Times / Politico / Vox / Wall Street Journal)
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/13/politics/paul-manafort-robert-mueller/index.html
3/ The Senate confirmed William Barr as attorney general, putting him in command of the Justice Department and its ongoing investigation into links between Russia's interference in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign. Last year, Barr sent a 19-page, unsolicited memo to the Justice Department and Trump's lawyers, arguing that Trump has the power to "start or stop a law enforcement proceeding," and therefore he could prevent Mueller from investigating whether Trump committed obstruction of justice when he pressured James Comey to drop an investigation into Michael Flynn. Barr previously served as George H.W. Bush's attorney general in the 1990s. (New York Times / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg)
4/ The former deputy F.B.I. director said Justice Department officials discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office after Trump fired Comey – his former boss – in May 2017. Andrew McCabe ordered the team investigating Russia's election interference to look into whether Trump had obstructed justice by firing Comey, and examine whether Trump had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests. McCabe's order came two days after Comey was fired in order "to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground, in an indelible fashion" so the investigation "could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace". McCabe was fired last March and stripped of his pension days before his planned retirement, because he "lacked candor." (CBS News / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post / New York Times)
https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/09/politics/james-comey-fbi-trump-white-out/
📌 Day 610: Rod Rosenstein raised the idea of wearing a wire last year to secretly record Trump in the White House and expose the chaos in the administration, according to memos written by Andrew McCabe, then the acting FBI director. Rosenstein also discussed recruiting Jeff Sessions and John Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security, to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office. Rosenstein called the report "inaccurate and factually incorrect," adding: "Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment." At least one person who was present for the discussions said Rosenstein was joking. (New York Times / Washington Post / Bloomberg / Associated Press)
📌 Day 725: The FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump had been working on behalf of Russia after he fired Comey in May 2017. Law enforcement officials became concerned that if Trump had fired Comey to stop the Russia investigation, his behavior would have constituted a threat to national security. Counterintelligence agents were also investigating why Trump was acting in ways that seemed to benefit Russia. No evidence has publicly emerged – yet – that Trump was secretly taking direction from Russian government officials. Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the report "absurd" and claimed that, compared to Obama, "Trump has actually been tough on Russia." (New York Times / CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/11/politics/nyt-russia-trump-investigation/index.html
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-dhs-guts-task-forces-protecting-elections-from-foreign-meddling
The House voted to stop U.S. funding for Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen. The move is seen as an attempt to limit presidential war powers and highlight Congress' anger of Trump's refusal to condemn Saudi Arabia in the wake of Jamal Khashoggi's murder inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey. The vote was 248 to 177 in favor of stopping aid and condemning the Saudi campaign, which has killed thousands of civilians and caused a massive famine and an historic cholera outbreak. (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/us/politics/yemen-war-saudi-arabia.html
Trump is accelerating a secret U.S. program to sabotage Iran's missiles and rockets in an attempt to cripple Iran's military and isolate its economy. The program has never been publicly acknowledged by U.S. officials, which involves slipping faulty parts and materials into Iran's aerospace supply chains. It was started under the Bush administration and was active early in the Obama administration, but it was winding down by 2017 when Mike Pompeo took over as CIA director and started ramping things up again. (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/us/politics/iran-missile-launch-failures.html
A White House security specialist wants official whistleblower protections from the federal government after she raised concerns about "unwarranted security clearances" for top administration officials like Jared Kushner. Tricia Newbold requested whistleblower protections less than two weeks after she was suspended without pay by her supervisor, Carl Kline. Newbold says Kline "repeatedly mishandled security files and has approved unwarranted security clearances," one of which was Jared Kushner's. Kline overruled Newbold's concerns and approved top-secret security clearance for Kushner and at least 30 White House officials. (NBC News)
Trump is in "very good health overall," according to results from his physical examination. Last year, then-physician Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson declared Trump in "excellent health," joking that Trump "might live to be 200 years old" if he made improvements to his diet. Trump gained four pounds since last year, putting his body mass index at 30.4, which makes him clinically obese. (CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/health/trump-physical-results-2019-bn/index.html
Edited by sgamer82 on Feb 14th 2019 at 6:56:37 AM
Just when things were starting to turn around for the GOP what with the targeting over the New Green Deal and socialism, and the Northam stuff, Trump finds a way to yank the football away from Charlie Brown.
It's reassuring to know that the status quo is still in effect.
Pelosi told reporters that Republicans should “have some dismay about the door that they’re opening” should they endorse Trump’s expected emergency declaration to fund his U.S.-Mexico barrier. She noted that a Democratic president could call the gun control epidemic claiming thousands of lives every year an emergency — a pointed threat on an issue Republicans hold dear: gun rights.
“You want to talk about an national emergency? Let’s talk about today, the one-year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America,” Pelosi said, referring to the Parkland, Fla., shooting that left more than a dozen high school students dead. “That’s a national emergency …. A Democratic president could do that.”
Edited by Kamiccolo on Feb 14th 2019 at 7:19:26 AM
That's not opposing Trump, that's promising consequences if it goes through anyway. If the worst happens and Trump gets his emergency, and the courts uphold it, when eventually the Dems take back the white house I do not want us to go down that path, regardless of "eye for an eye." Let them destroy democracy, if it ever comes to that, but we should die fighting for it, not undermining it in our favor.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.I don't know... if terrorism can be considered a national emergency worthy of an undeclared war, then gun violence sure as hell could. I'm not saying this is the solution, but sauce for the goose...
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I don't see it as promising "payback", more like pointing out to the Republicans that Trump is setting a precedent that could (and most likely would) come back to bite them in ass in the long run. I don't know where you'd draw the line between using logic to point out the obvious and vowing retaliation, but I'm firmly in the first camp on this one.
Edited by GoldenKaos on Feb 15th 2019 at 11:02:55 AM
"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."Seems like Pelosi is trying to scare Republican senators into supporting a motion of disapproval. The law that governs emergency declarations allows Congress to invalidate one through a resolution of disapproval, and Pelosi will almost certainly send such a motion on the way.
Now such a resolution is a normal law meaning that it has to pass the Senate and can be vetoed and Congress would need 2/3 majorities in each House to override the expected veto...but the cool thing is that a resolution is a "privileged motion" thus it can't be filibustered and Evil Turtle can't block it from getting a vote. Thus if the House approves the motion (and it surely will) Republican senators will have to pick a position.
Either vote Aye and stare down Trump and his voters or vote Nay and helplessly watch future Democratic presidents declare climate change a national emergency and mine the - scarily expansive - emergency powers for this purpose and their advantage.
Edited by SeptimusHeap on Feb 15th 2019 at 12:52:15 PM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanThe former governor of Massachusetts and Libertarian VP candidate Bill Weld is considering plans to wage a primary campaign against Trump. Probably won't go anywhere, given that GOP approval of Trump is in the high 80s.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/15/politics/bill-weld-2020-exploratory-committee/index.html
Also getting word via CNN that Trump's emergency declaration is coming within the hour.
Edited by Rationalinsanity on Feb 15th 2019 at 10:50:48 AM
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.I mean, the first thing they'd implement is "a fucking study into the dangers of gun control," something they're somehow barred from doing now.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.The CDC isn't banned from studying gun violence. More importantly, even if they were, others would be able to do so to their hearts desire. You'll probably hate this source, but it's the other side's perspective.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/03/09/no-government-isnt-banned-from-studying-gun-violence/
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Within the first few paragraphs that article admits its own premise is incorrect. As they point out, when the CDC attempted to conduct gun violence studies, congress immediately stripped every last dollar it had to fund said studies away, and in the time since only around 30 studies have been funded, and small ones at that, due to continued funding threats.
The rest of the article is just bitching about Obama and CDC funding as a whole, which isn’t really relevant to the topic.
I’m far to the pro-gun side of this issue. I own guns, even carry every now and then, and I consider shooting one of my main hobbies. That said, I don’t think my hobby is worth innocent lives. I happily support increased gun control measures and vote and donate in line with that as often as I can. The way the gun crisis has been handled in the US is deeply shameful, something has to be done.
Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 15th 2019 at 7:23:56 AM
They should have sent a poet.
