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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Trump tweets:
Why doesn’t the Fake News Media state that the Trump Administration’s Anti-Trust Division has been, and is, opposed to the AT&T purchase of Time Warner in a currently ongoing Trial. Such a disgrace in reporting!
Hell, my first car was more reliable than anything that comes out of Trump's mouth...
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.No. Stop this. Schneiderman's story is complete bullshit, among the charges are that he tried to get a prominent female lawyer (and political supporter of his) in the NYC region to sleep with him, and out of nowhere smacked her so hard that she had a raised red handprint on her face the next day, which she has picture evidence of. If Schneiderman wasn't guilty as fuck, he wouldn't have announced his resignation within three hours of when the (progressive and anti-Trump) magazine first ran the story.
It's entirely possible that Trump and Cohen wanted to blackmail Schneiderman and get him to back off of them, but that would require Schneiderman to stay in office. Almost everyone that could potentially replace Schneiderman would be just as bad for them or worse. (The only one that wouldn't be as bad is a Republican candidate, and if you think a Republican has much chance of being elected to a statewide office in New York during the era of Trump, well, I've got a famous bridge to sell you...)
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
Damn. That allegation I hadn't heard about - I'd only heard about the two that were in years-long relationships with him, with his referring to one as his "brown slave", along with allegations of abuse when he got drunk.
And yes, I'm entirely aware of how many women might stay with their abusers out of fear (including the allegation that he'd threatened to kill one of them) - I still find it odd that their attorney contacted Michael Cohen, of all people. Especially as Kirsten Gillibrand has been in the Senate since 2008, and has proven herself to be firmly against abuse in all its forms - I'd have thought she'd be the more credible person to go to, rather than the lawyer for serial-philanderer Donald Trump.
Okay, Cohen hearing it through the grapevine and then reaching out in the hopes of acquiring blackmail material makes a lot more sense, though it was still naive of the lawyer to think that Trump would actually take action on it. But hey, any port in a storm, as the saying goes.
edited 12th May '18 9:05:47 AM by ironballs16
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"Nvm
edited 12th May '18 9:09:15 AM by Larkmarn
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.Neverminding the nevermind.
But yeah, to reiterate, the reason my skepticism was firing off is because I mistakenly thought that the womens' lawyer approached Cohen/Trump with the information, not the other way 'round, as the former seems shady as hell, while the latter seems standard practice for those two.
edited 12th May '18 9:34:53 AM by ironballs16
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"Suspicions, Demands and Threats: Devin Nunes vs. the Justice Dept.
The chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, has issued increasingly bold demands for access to some of the Justice Department’s most sensitive case files. He has courted a series of escalating confrontations over access to materials that are usually off limits to Congress under department policy. And when those efforts failed, he threatened top law enforcement officials — mostly Republicans appointed by Mr. Trump.
In the latest episode, splashed across cable news this past week, Mr. Nunes demanded more documents and related materials for his investigation into allegations of surveillance abuse by federal law enforcement officials. His claim pitted him against not just the Justice Department, but also officials in the F.B.I., the intelligence community and the White House, who warned that disclosure could endanger a longtime source who is aiding the special counsel’s investigation.
As Mr. Nunes sees it, the cycle of confrontation is part of a legitimate effort by him and other House Republicans to conduct oversight of obstinate law enforcement officials.
But increasingly, top officials at the Justice Department have privately expressed concern that the lawmakers are simply mining government secrets for information they can weaponize against those investigating the president, including the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
Mr. Nunes was unconvinced by the warnings about the intelligence and law enforcement source, first issuing a subpoena ordering that the Justice Department comply with his latest records request and then a pointed threat to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions — who is not involved in the case — in contempt of Congress.
“Look, I just don’t believe that the White House does not want them to comply with a subpoena from Congress,” Mr. Nunes told reporters. “Everything else that has come out about this investigation has been pretty damaging to their activities,” he added, referring to the Justice Department.
The relationship between the Justice Department and Mr. Nunes has so eroded that when he trekked down Pennsylvania Avenue on Thursday from the Capitol to the department to discuss his latest request, Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, a Republican colleague and former federal prosecutor, tagged along at the encouragement of the House speaker to help keep the meeting civil, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Democrats believe the pattern is clear: Mr. Nunes is abusing his authority to undermine the Russia investigation.
“The goal is not the information,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the committee. “The goal is the fight. And the ultimate objective is to undermine the Justice Department, undermine Bob Mueller and give the president a pretext to fire people.”
The requests have also sent waves of tension through the department itself. The F.B.I. is generally opposed to giving lawmakers access to any materials related to a continuing investigation. But Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who is overseeing the Russia investigation, has political considerations to weigh. To completely withhold information could be politically untenable — and potentially put the Mueller investigation at risk — given the support Mr. Nunes enjoys from Mr. Trump.
After months of giving into requests, Mr. Rosenstein has signaled that he is unwilling to go much further.
“If we were to just open our doors to allow Congress to come and rummage through the files, that would be a serious infringement on the separation of powers,” Mr. Rosenstein said at an event this month, amid reports that another House Republican had drafted articles of impeachment against him.
For now, tensions between Mr. Nunes and Mr. Rosenstein appear to have eased somewhat after Thursday’s briefings, which included both classified and unclassified sessions. The department did not share the requested documents with lawmakers, but it convened officials from the F.B.I. and Office of the Director of National Intelligence to lay out their case.
Afterward, Mr. Nunes and Mr. Gowdy said in a statement that they “had a productive discussion” and that they “look forward to continuing our dialogue next week.” Both sides signaled that they left with the impression that they had gotten the upper hand.
But the distrust, built over months of interactions, current and former officials said, is unlikely to dissipate soon.
The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, has repeatedly and publicly backed Mr. Nunes. When Mr. Rosenstein and Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, came to Capitol Hill in January in a last-ditch effort to stave off an earlier subpoena, Mr. Ryan insisted that they comply and that Mr. Nunes would act responsibly. And when, weeks later, the department took rare public steps to try to block the release of a much-disputed memo drawn up by Republican committee aides from those documents, Mr. Ryan argued that Americans ought to be able to see the memo.
He offered similar support this time.
“This request is wholly appropriate,” Mr. Ryan told reporters on Thursday. “It’s completely within the scope of the investigation” by Mr. Nunes.
But Mr. Nunes’s handling of his secretive memo, released in early February, has been a source of lasting ill will. The document accused top F.B.I. and Justice Department officials, including Mr. Rosenstein, of abusing their authorities to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser suspected of being an agent of Russia. Law enforcement officials warned that the document was dangerously misleading and pointed out that Mr. Nunes had not read the underlying surveillance applications on which his four-page document was based.
Yet Mr. Trump seized on its findings to declare that he had been vindicated. And now, department officials said they were fearful that Mr. Nunes and his allies were seeking a repeat performance. More troubling, the officials said, is that Mr. Nunes’s actions suggest that he is more interested in courting conflict than understanding the case.
In the middle of another records dispute last month, Mr. Nunes threatened to hold Mr. Rosenstein in contempt or even try to impeach him if the Justice Department did not grant access to a nearly complete copy of a document used to open the Russia investigation in the summer of 2016, as well as material related to the wiretap of the Trump campaign aide, Carter Page. Mr. Rosenstein acquiesced and handed over the documents, but despite Mr. Nunes’s repeated demands, he never read them, according to an official familiar with the matter.
In another meeting, Mr. Rosenstein felt he was outright misled by Mr. Nunes’s staff. Mr. Rosenstein wanted to know whether Kashyap Patel, an investigator working for Mr. Nunes who was the primary author of the disputed memo, had traveled to London the previous summer to interview a former British spy who had compiled a salacious dossier about Mr. Trump, according to a former federal law enforcement official familiar with the interaction.
Mr. Patel was not forthcoming during the contentious meeting, the official said, and the conversation helped solidify Mr. Rosenstein’s belief that Mr. Nunes and other allies in Congress were not operating in good faith.
A spokesman for Mr. Nunes, Jack Langer, declined to comment.
Mr. Nunes made his newest request late last month. After consultation with the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the F.B.I., the Justice Department rejected it a few days later.
“Disclosure of responsive information to such requests can risk severe consequences, including potential loss of human lives, damage to relationships with valued international partners, compromise of ongoing criminal investigations, and interference with intelligence activities,” Stephen E. Boyd, an assistant attorney general, wrote in a letter to Mr. Nunes.
Since then, the two sides have been unable to agree on what Mr. Nunes wants to see. Mr. Nunes insists that he has never been interested in the sensitive source, but rather wants documents and other material related to his investigation into surveillance abuse allegations.
“I have never referenced an individual; they did,” he told reporters in recent days, referring to the Justice Department.
But at the department, the claim has been viewed as baffling. Mr. Nunes’s subpoena, they point out, refers to only one thing: a person.
Extorting the Department of Justice, anyone?
Yes, it happened once.
In the lead up to the Civil War. The party did everything and everything to protect slavery at the expense of all other laws.
It included physical assault of a man with a cane.
edited 12th May '18 11:03:56 AM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.It's worth remembering that Nunes took someone with him when he demanded the documents and then completely failed to read them. His companion was the one who read them. Since that time, the person who read them said to the press that he's satisfied the Mueller investigation is entirely justified — in complete opposition to Nunes himself.
Most of the Republicans who support Nunes haven't read the relevant documents; they're taking his word for it. Those who have read the documents, including some of his own staffers, support the Mueller investigation on the grounds of the content of those documents.
I'll have to see if I can find the quote.
edited 12th May '18 11:07:00 AM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.The thing is Nunes hasnt really got anything, he's just trying to stir the pot, get the base riled up, and maybe weaken Rosensteins political position.
My impression is that he is not succeeding. If Trump fired R now, it would cost him politically.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.I'm not just talking about Trump. I'm talking about the above with Nunes getting documents and not bothering to read them. I'm talking letting guys like Trump and Roy Moore get as close to real power as they have. I'm talking about cabinet members actively opposed to their own departments. I'm talking about one of the first things Republicans did once Trump was elected, literally January 2017, being to try and get rid of a Congressional ethics/oversight committee. I'm talking about their sheer inability to get things done when they've gone around, changed, and ignored their own rules to do so.
These guys are both brazen about their power grabs and, more often than not, really really bad at them.
edited 12th May '18 11:27:51 AM by sgamer82
The latest tool for the Trump Admin to keep money from being used to help people... er, I mean, trim the budget, is Presidential Rescission
The White House is set to request a rescission package this week, asking Congress to rescind funds previously allocated by Congress and signed into law — the first installment in what’s expected to become a larger Trump administration push to clamp down on big government spending. This time, however, Trump’s request won’t touch the recently passed $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill that the president was so irate over. Instead, it will slash spending from domestic programs that was appropriated years ago and hasn’t been spent yet. Ironically, it’s unlikely to have much of an impact on the deficit at all.
The package will include cuts to funding that has been dormant for several years, like $7 billion from the Children’s Health Insurance Program, $5 billion of which has expired and cannot be spent and $2 billion from a contingency fund the administration says will be unnecessary; $800 million from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation program; $107 million from funding for Hurricane Sandy relief, that requires local communities to match the dollars; money allocated for the Ebola outbreak; and several grants. Administration officials said they find the package uncontroversial and expect it to pass the House. The prospects in the Senate are more uncertain, and the proposal has already been met with some criticism.
Once the request has been made, Congress will have 45 days to act on the president’s call before it expires. During that time, the funding is automatically frozen. If the package does get a vote, it will only require a simple majority to pass. But even if this request isn’t as significant as the administration’s initial calls for massive spending cuts, it still won’t be easy to get it passed. Already, several senators have dismissed relitigating spending. The last president to successfully get Congress to cut spending through rescission was Bill Clinton.
The push, trumpeted by Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, a former House Freedom Caucus member and major deficit hawk, comes after a major tax cut push and a massive spending bill that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will increase the national debt by $11.7 trillion over the next 10 years.
...
“There are a lot of things I am unhappy about,” Trump said, calling for an end to the Senate filibuster, which gave Democrats, who control 49 Senate seats, leverage over spending negotiations and a line-item veto (which would be unconstitutional).
So Mulvaney, who’s in charge of the nation’s budget, cooked up a plan to push Congress to make spending cuts while also getting around the Senate filibuster: presidential rescission.
The process was established in 1974 under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, designed to slow down Richard Nixon’s impoundment of (refusal to spend) tens of billions of dollars. Nixon was effectively eliminating programs he didn’t want by simply refusing to spend the money Congress appropriated for it, censuring lawmakers for contributing to inflation and huge deficits.
The presidential rescission process was supposed to put additional congressional controls around impoundment. It gives Trump the power to delay spending and requires Congress to act to actually reduce it, as the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget explained:
The executive branch is legally required to spend money that Congress has appropriated, but the President may temporarily delay spending of budget authority (BA) the President views as not worthwhile, while asking Congress to consider cutting that spending. Congress can pass a rescission package with only a simple majority in the Senate – rather than the 60-vote supermajority generally needed to overcome a filibuster.
In other words, the president can reduce or eliminate funding for any individual programs, as long as it has the approval of a simple majority of Congress.
Various different American and international companies hired/paid Michael Cohen, apparently in an attempt to influence the Trump White House
. Notables include AT&T, (who proclaimed the actions a mistake and fired the guy they have in charge of lobbying) drug company Novartis, a South Korean aviation company that hired him to be an accountant despite him not being an accountant
, possibly a Russian oligarch
, etc. (Stories from AP, Washington Post, and NPR)
The FBI warned in 2014 that a foundation owned by the same billionaire involved with Cohen in the above paragraph was a front for Russian Intelligence, and a means to steal U.S. technolgies and intellectual properties
. Also, a Putin backed Russian politician began courting American conservatives as far back as 2009
. (Both stories from NPR)
FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Lucia Ziobro wrote an unusual column in the Boston Business Journal in April of 2014 to warn that a foundation controlled by Russian energy baron Viktor Vekselberg might be part of a Moscow spying campaign that sought to siphon up American science and technology.
"The foundation may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation's sensitive or classified research, development facilities and dual-use technologies with military and commercial applications," Ziobro wrote. "This analysis is supported by reports coming out of Russia itself."
Fast forward to this week: Vekselberg's name has been in U.S. headlines because of allegations about his involvement with payments to Trump's longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen.
A lawyer suing Trump and Cohen, Michael Avenatti, released a document on Tuesday charging that Vekselberg might have reimbursed Cohen for the payment he made to Avenatti's client, porn actress Stormy Daniels. Avenatti's document has not been fully verified but important aspects of it have been confirmed.
Andrey Shtorkh, a spokesman for Vekselberg, did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Documents newly obtained by NPR show how he traveled throughout the United States to cultivate ties in ways well beyond his formal role as a member of the Russian legislature and later as a top official at the Russian central bank. These are steps a former top CIA official believes Torshin took in order to advance Moscow's long-term objectives in the United States, in part by establishing common political interests with American conservatives.
"[Vladimir] Putin and probably the Russian intelligence services saw [Torshin's connections] as something that they could leverage in the United States," said Steve Hall, a retired CIA chief of Russian operations. "They reach out to a guy like Torshin and say, 'Hey, can you make contact with the NRA and some other conservatives ... so that we can have connectivity from Moscow into those conservative parts of American politics should we need them?' And that's basically just wiring the United States for sound, if you will, in preparation for whatever they might need down the road."
Torshin's trips took him to Alaska, where he requested a visit with former Gov. Sarah Palin; to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.; to Nashville, where he was an election observer for the 2012 presidential race; and to every NRA convention, in various American cities, between 2012 and 2016.
But the jig is up. Last month, Torshin was designated for sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department.
"We can conclude that the administration thought he was acting to advance Putin's malign agenda, but what precisely [he did] they did not make clear," said Daniel Fried, a former State Department coordinator for sanctions policy who helped craft the sanctions that ultimately were employed against Torshin.
Survey finds that over 60% of Republicans surveyed believe the FBI is framing Trump. Only 13% of Republicans believe the investigation is legitimate
. For those interested, here's a direct link
to the survey results.
Meanwhile, even Republican pollsters are finding that registered independents trust Mueller more than Trump, and that trust in Mueller is increasing the key swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin
.
Last item for this news dump: Chief of Staff John Kelly conducted a rare interview with NPR. Audio here
, transcript here
Key takeaways for me:
- Kelly is a true believer, both in Republicanism in general and Trump. He took time to deride the Mueller investigation, trash the Iran deal, etc.
- Kelly is somewhat more sympathetic to immigrants than Trump, but he does back ICE 100% and all the tough and controversial actions such as breaking up families who try to cross the borders illegally. He also takes a moment to adopt a classic American put down to many groups of different immigrants throughout the ages, saying that many of those fleeing their country are too poorly educated and unskilled to properly be part of U.S. society and be productive.
- Unlike Trump, he favors a path to citizenship for people who have been in the U.S. for prolonged periods under TPS (Temporary Protected Status) and perhaps DACA as well.
I think we should fold all of the TPS people that have been here for a considerable period of time and find a way for them to be [on] a path to citizenship. Use the Haitians as an example.
A path to citizenship rather than sent home?
Yeah. Well, they were there in a legal status under TPS, that's a big deal. They're under legal status. You take the Central Americans that have been here 20-plus years. I mean if you really start looking at them and saying, "OK you know you've been here 20 years. What have you done with your life?" Well, I've met an American guy and I have three children and I've worked and gotten a degree or I'm a brick mason or something like that. That's what I think we should do — for the ones that have been here for shorter periods of time, the whatever it was that gave them TPS status in the first place. If that is solved back in their home countries they should go home.
- Despite the fact that Kelly loathes some of the people who were part of the Trump admin at first, (presumably the Gorkas, Bannons and bannonites, etc.) he is still very much Trump's man. And he claims not to have been sidelined at all, as some recent reports have suggested. How much of that is true and how much is being a good Marine is open to interpretation.
edited 12th May '18 11:48:03 AM by TheWanderer
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
The only person I actually like connected to the Trump Adminstration is Rosenstein.
He seems like an decent, upright person and good career Civil Servant (DOJ for over 30 years). (Also, his obvious admiration for Robert Jackson
, is endearing, and says a lot about him and his values.).
edited 12th May '18 12:30:08 PM by megaeliz

An op-ed on the extent of Trump's corruption from Dan Rather: https://www.newsandguts.com/dan-rather-seeing-tip-corruption-iceberg/
The first couple paragraphs:
That is why I am stunned by what is taking place today. Over the course of my life, I have never seen a level of corruption in the United States equal to that emanating from the Trump Administration. It is the ultimate threat to effective governance. It is morally repugnant and a repudiation of the very ideals of our democracy. It is the rot of power for sale.
edited 12th May '18 7:47:08 AM by sgamer82