In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
If the US was run as a European country was this government would have fallen by now.
An Australian pharmaceutical company says it gave President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services an exclusive deal to purchase stock, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
That directly contradicts Price's testimony in his confirmation hearings that discounted shares of Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd. “were available to every single individual that was an investor at the time."
Innate Immuno CEO Simon Wilkinson said in an interview with the Journal that those investors who had previously participated in private placement had been invited to “make friends and family aware of the opportunity” to buy discounted shares.
The Journal confirmed the exclusive discount in an interview with Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY), who owns a 17 percent stake in the company and who made Price aware of the stock opportunity.
Price was one of just six “friends and family” of investors previously involved in a private placement that were offered the special discounted rates, according to the report. The Journal noted that “about 10” investors who previously purchased Innate Immuno stock were also offered discount rates, in addition to all investors in Australia and New Zealand.
Prior to the Journal report, Price was already in hot water for the timing of his initial investment in Innate Immuno. He introduced legislation that would have benefitted the company after buying up to $15,000 in stock in the company in March of last year.
After that initial investment, Price invested larger sums in Innate Immuno stock at discounted rates, according to the Journal report. On two separate occasions, Price invested a net of $50,000-$100,000, according to disclosure forms.
The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to vote Tuesday on Price's nomination to lead HHS.
On January 31 2017 07:52 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
So this Stephen Bannon guy believes people must form a church militant. Oh and he's also on the highest security council of the US right now while the intelligence and military leaders are not.
I found this interesting read about the actions of last week being the administration testing the waters of how far they can go in grabbing uncontested power. It's far out there, but quite well sourced and with how fast changes are being made already it doesn't feel like it's 100% conspiracy bs either anymore to be honest.
I mean if this is really how the state department looks right now then wow. Blue crosses are unfilled positions, red are purged positions. There's not much left.
Boy, that's a spooky article. I mean, supposing Trump did want to seize complete and unchecked power, he'd basically have Congress, the courts, and the military able to oppose him. If he can normalize total contempt of court, that's one of three that can no longer stop him.
They say executive branch power is on a slow march upward, looks like Trump is going to test it to its limits. They have a "shadow cabinet" in each department - senior advisers who will essentially have to sign off on the cabinet secretaries' decisions, and who will presumably have a direct line to Trump's inner circle. This is, reportedly, unprecedented. Inner circle is also consolidating power in other ways, like with the NSC. Of course those moves are all within the executive, I guess the real test is what they do with Congress and the courts.
I've been thinking about reading some histories of the Nazi movement. Obviously a fair number of people on the left think Trump is literally Hitler, and that often gets written off as wingnut insanity. I'd certainly still grant that possibility seems remote, and that in all likelihood the Trump presidency will be perhaps the worst our nation has seen, but in fairly mundane ways.
But he's shown a clear interest in creating state-manufactured propaganda, frequently unambiguously false, and going full attack-mode on any news outlet that questions the state narrative (admittedly I haven't seen him question the patriotism of anyone trying to fact check him - yet); he's shown clear intention to pursue his policies by whatever unilateral power he can muster, and fight any other branch of government that tries to restrict him on Constitutional grounds; his policies draw a sharp distinction between Americans and non-Americans, and are explicitly advertised as pursuing benefits for Americans at the expense of everyone else; while that circle of who qualifies as "American" is incrementally narrowed (a fair number of permanent legal US residents just found themselves moved to the other side).
I'm not familiar with these tactics in American politics. The only place I know them from is Nazi history. That alone does not prove any moral equivalence between the German far-right movement of the 30's and the American one of today; but if anybody still feels like the country will surely remain within the normal parameters of peaceful political action that have typified the United States up to this point, they must recognize that we are looking at something unprecedented, and whatever has historically kept us within those parameters may no longer be able to impose the same restraints.
At what point do we think minorities must, for their own safety, keep tabs on the tenor of politics, and consider an exit strategy if things get too bad? There are quite a few Muslims with green cards that already got burned for not keeping their ear to the ground; in retrospect, any non-citizen Muslim, even with proper papers, should not have left the country any time after January 20th.
Unprecedented indeed. The willful defiance of the judiciary, with this absurd, Trump-like legal reasoning of "international arrival sections of airports are not US soil" is horrible and I'm pretty sure no one of sound mind would support it.
The Department of Homeland Security has 45,000 standing officers, and recently got authorization for 15,000 more. I'm pretty sure the only thing standing between the executive branch and a coup, in an extreme scenario, is the willingness of the executive branch's armed troops and officers.
So this Stephen Bannon guy believes people must form a church militant. Oh and he's also on the highest security council of the US right now while the intelligence and military leaders are not.
I found this interesting read about the actions of last week being the administration testing the waters of how far they can go in grabbing uncontested power. It's far out there, but quite well sourced and with how fast changes are being made already it doesn't feel like it's 100% conspiracy bs either anymore to be honest.
I mean if this is really how the state department looks right now then wow. Blue crosses are unfilled positions, red are purged positions. There's not much left.
Boy, that's a spooky article. I mean, supposing Trump did want to seize complete and unchecked power, he'd basically have Congress, the courts, and the military able to oppose him. If he can normalize total contempt of court, that's one of three that can no longer stop him.
They say executive branch power is on a slow march upward, looks like Trump is going to test it to its limits. They have a "shadow cabinet" in each department - senior advisers who will essentially have to sign off on the cabinet secretaries' decisions, and who will presumably have a direct line to Trump's inner circle. This is, reportedly, unprecedented. Inner circle is also consolidating power in other ways, like with the NSC. Of course those moves are all within the executive, I guess the real test is what they do with Congress and the courts.
I've been thinking about reading some histories of the Nazi movement. Obviously a fair number of people on the left think Trump is literally Hitler, and that often gets written off as wingnut insanity. I'd certainly still grant that possibility seems remote, and that in all likelihood the Trump presidency will be perhaps the worst our nation has seen, but in fairly mundane ways.
But he's shown a clear interest in creating state-manufactured propaganda, frequently unambiguously false, and going full attack-mode on any news outlet that questions the state narrative (admittedly I haven't seen him question the patriotism of anyone trying to fact check him - yet); he's shown clear intention to pursue his policies by whatever unilateral power he can muster, and fight any other branch of government that tries to restrict him on Constitutional grounds; his policies draw a sharp distinction between Americans and non-Americans, and are explicitly advertised as pursuing benefits for Americans at the expense of everyone else; while that circle of who qualifies as "American" is incrementally narrowed (a fair number of permanent legal US residents just found themselves moved to the other side).
I'm not familiar with these tactics in American politics. The only place I know them from is Nazi history. That alone does not prove any moral equivalence between the German far-right movement of the 30's and the American one of today; but if anybody still feels like the country will surely remain within the normal parameters of peaceful political action that have typified the United States up to this point, they must recognize that we are looking at something unprecedented, and whatever has historically kept us within those parameters may no longer be able to impose the same restraints.
At what point do we think minorities must, for their own safety, keep tabs on the tenor of politics, and consider an exit strategy if things get too bad? There are quite a few Muslims with green cards that already got burned for not keeping their ear to the ground; in retrospect, any non-citizen Muslim, even with proper papers, should not have left the country any time after January 20th.
Unprecedented indeed. The willful defiance of the judiciary, with this absurd, Trump-like legal reasoning of "international arrival sections of airports are not US soil" is horrible and I'm pretty sure no one of sound mind would support it.
The Department of Homeland Security has 45,000 standing officers, and recently got authorization for 15,000 more. I'm pretty sure the only thing standing between the executive branch and a coup, in an extreme scenario, is the willingness of the executive branch's armed troops and officers.
There is something frightening in the fact that at the end of the day, the only thing stopping a president from declaring martial law and seizing total control of the government would be the military's willingness to carry it out. Knowing the political leanings of the military I find that prospect deeply unnerving. In that nightmare scenario the only comfort I can find is that patriotism is so core to the beliefs and motivations of that crowd, and no true patriot could do that to our nation.
Few things should set off alarm bells about potential fascism or at least propaganda efforts louder than appointing a media editor whose position you created yourself with a self-avowed desire to see the government crumble into chaos onto the National Security Council at the expense of traditional military members.
On January 31 2017 11:25 TheTenthDoc wrote: Few things should set off alarm bells louder than appointing someone with a self-avowed desire to see the government crumble into chaos onto the National Security Council.
Going to be sorely disappointed when it end up getting us Supreme Leader Hillary Clinton indefinitely ruling over the charred remains of the US government. + Show Spoiler +
The scary thing is this reveals how Trump believes everything is his and not defending a case is a betrayal to him. It is the AG job to do what she was doing.
On January 31 2017 11:37 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The scary thing is this reveals how Trump believes everything is his and not defending a case is a betrayal to him. It is the AG job to do what she was doing.
On January 31 2017 11:37 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The scary thing is this reveals how Trump believes everything is his and not defending a case is a betrayal to him. It is the AG job to do what she was doing.
No it's not, she made a purely political move a few days before her time as an interim AG was about to end. She could have confronted Trump directly in private, instead she just sent out a tweet.
well according to fivethirtyeight people really hate when the president fires people (although this is a bit of exceptional circumstances) can't see this gaining him any supporters though
On January 31 2017 11:37 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The scary thing is this reveals how Trump believes everything is his and not defending a case is a betrayal to him. It is the AG job to do what she was doing.
No it's not, she made a purely political move a few days before her time as an interim AG was about to end. She could have confronted Trump directly in private, instead she just sent out a tweet.
Um no it's the job of AG to do what she did, to decide to either defend a case or not and advise the Government on why and what to do next etc. She's not the first to do so either.
On January 31 2017 11:37 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The scary thing is this reveals how Trump believes everything is his and not defending a case is a betrayal to him. It is the AG job to do what she was doing.
No it's not, she made a purely political move a few days before her time as an interim AG was about to end. She could have confronted Trump directly in private, instead she just sent out a tweet.
Um no it's the job of AG to do what she did, to decide to either defend a case or not and advise the Government on why and what to so next. She's not the first to do so either.
Yeah but the way she went about it was beneath the DOJ.
"weak on immigration and very weak on borders" is Trump writing this himself?
what is the difference between being weak and very weak on these issues and how is it being measured? The English language is the first victim of the Trump administration.
On January 31 2017 11:37 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The scary thing is this reveals how Trump believes everything is his and not defending a case is a betrayal to him. It is the AG job to do what she was doing.
No it's not, she made a purely political move a few days before her time as an interim AG was about to end. She could have confronted Trump directly in private, instead she just sent out a tweet.
it is her job though... if your argument is that it was a dickmove to do it via tweet rather than in private... we're talking about Trump here. Maybe we should hold him to that standard
On January 31 2017 11:42 Nyxisto wrote: "weak on immigration and very weak on borders" is Trump writing this himself?
what is the difference between being weak and very weak on these issues and how is it being measured? The English language is the first victim of the Trump administration.
I was 100% thinking the same. That one line if nothing else is from him for sure
On January 31 2017 11:37 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The scary thing is this reveals how Trump believes everything is his and not defending a case is a betrayal to him. It is the AG job to do what she was doing.
No it's not, she made a purely political move a few days before her time as an interim AG was about to end. She could have confronted Trump directly in private, instead she just sent out a tweet.
Um no it's the job of AG to do what she did, to decide to either defend a case or not and advise the Government on why and what to so next. She's not the first to do so either.
Yeah but the way she went about it was beneath the DOJ.
No it wasn't she wasn't going to defend the case in court due to it being Unconstitutional in her view.
EPT![[image loading]](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/600/1*8IDunC3Egvsw1Lr9_o6yxA.png)
![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3dxApHVcAEzFVr.jpg)
