US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6879

On February 15 2017 23:30 IgnE wrote:


that sounds like some high level reification from a detail- and fact-oriented analyst. the norms are gonna get us.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) on Wednesday morning called for Congressional investigations into Michael Flynn and the Trump administration's ties to Russia, warning that failure to address the issue could "destabilize" the federal government's ability to enact policy.

"The base issue is getting to the bottom of what the Russian interference was and what the relationship was with associates of the Trump effort, and so that is the big elephant in the room that has got to be dealt with in the most appropriate way," Corker said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"There's the issue of: Is the White House going to have the ability to stabilize itself? This affects us not just with international issues that are brewing all around the world — all kinds of problems — but the domestic agenda here," Corker continued.

The senator said that investigating leaks to the press about the White House, which some Republicans have focused on, is a "sub-issue."

"The big issue right now is dealing with this Russia issue, making sure that it doesn't destabilize our ability to move ahead as a country and deal with important issues," he said.

Flynn resigned from his role as national security adviser following reports that he spoke with the Russian ambassador about U.S. sanctions. The White House and President Donald Trump had reportedly been warned about the content of the calls a couple weeks before Flynn resigned, but Vice President was left in the dark until late last week. Following Flynn's resignation, multiple outlets reported that additional Trump aides were in contact with Russian officials before the election.

Corker told MSNBC on Wednesday that he's concerned about Trump's past comments praising Putin. He said that the Trump administration has evolved on several foreign policy issues, but that they have not changed their stance toward Russia.

"The one area where the evolution is not taking place is with Russia. Russia is not our friend," he said. "This relationship that seems to exist and seems to be preeminent and seems to be driving so much of the conversation within the White House, to me, is still not righted itself."

Corker seemed hopeful that the administration will change its view, but said that there are still concerns about Trump's policy toward Russia.

"People are concerned that he is going to strip away sanctions that are in place. I think that is almost impossible now with everything that’s happened, but that is the one area that is hard to understand," he said.

He also said that he hopes Congress will be able to question Michael Flynn, but he said that such an effort may not be possible if the FBI is still investigating. Corker indicated that speaking with Flynn would help Congress determine what the White House knew about his efforts.

"I don't know that I want to get into the intrigue of the daily blows, but I want to understand what’s happened here," Corker said. "If I were them, by the way, if I were the people leading the Trump effort at the White House, I would want to make sure, with all of the suspicion, that everybody fully understood what has taken place, otherwise maybe there's a problem that obviously goes much deeper than what we now suspect."

The executive powers of President Donald Trump are not above judicial review, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday, offering gentle pushback that followed assertions from White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller that federal judges overstepped their bounds by blocking one of Trump’s controversial executive orders on immigration.

“I mean, under the Constitution, all of our actions are subject to judicial review,” McConnell (R-Ky.) told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in an interview taped on Tuesday that aired Wednesday morning.

“All of the president’s actions?” host Joe Scarborough followed up?

“Yes, all of us, both Congress and president and that's, of course, happening,” McConnell replied. “The 9th circuit has spoken on this issue and the White House will respond to it in one of the ways that they have to deal with this, including the possibility of issuing a different order.”

The court ruling to which McConnell referred is one from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel from which voted unanimously earlier this month to uphold a lower court’s ruling that blocked Trump’s order temporarily banning individuals from seven majority-Muslim nations from entering the U.S. That decision, as well as the initial ruling by U.S. District Court Judge James Robart, prompted Trump to lash out on Twitter.

“The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!” Trump wrote on Twitter after the initial decision blocking his order, following it the next day with another post. "Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!"

When the appeals court upheld the lower court’s opinion, Trump lashed out in all caps: “SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!”

The following Sunday, in a wave of appearances on the Sunday political talk shows, Miller was harshly critical of the judges who had blocked Trump’s order. He told Fox News Sunday that “the president's powers here are beyond question” and called the court rulings “a judicial usurpation of power.”

“There's no such thing as judicial supremacy. What the judges did, both at the 9th and at the district level was to take power for themselves that belongs squarely in the hands of the president of the United States,” Miller told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“The end result of this though is that our opponents, the media, and the whole world will see as we begin to take further actions that the powers of the President to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Scarborough also asked McConnell if he had spoken with Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by deceased Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, and if Gorsuch had conveyed to the Senate Majority Leader concerns about the president’s rhetoric towards the judiciary.

Relaying the contents of his own conversation with Gorsuch, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said the Supreme Court nominee had called Trump’s attacks against the judiciary “disheartening” and “demoralizing,” a sentiment that was corroborated by other senators who met with Gorsuch.

McConnell said Trump’s nominee had not conveyed those thoughts during their meeting but that “I happen to agree with what he said. I mean, I think, you know, criticizing members of the judiciary, individually, is not a good idea. We all get opinions we don't like.”

Further, McConnell and Scarborough agreed that the White House should not have been surprised by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling, because the West Coast-based circuit is known to lean to the left.

On February 16 2017 01:06 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Hey fellow American TL'ers wouldn't be amazing if we lived in a modern country...

https://twitter.com/AP/status/831897054087696384

On February 15 2017 23:45 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:

Oh it's all about Hilary's lost campaign how have I been so blind /s



I like the 'very un-american' addition. While the topic of the leaks is russian influence on the white house lol.

On February 16 2017 01:17 Mohdoo wrote:


Jesus. Anyone here want to argue why this is a good thing?

In December 2016, the SSA promulgated a final rule that would require the names
of all Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security
Income (SSI) benefit recipients – who, because of a mental impairment, use a
representative payee to help manage their benefits – be submitted to the National
Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which is used during gun
purchases.
We oppose this rule because it advances and reinforces the harmful stereotype that
people with mental disabilities, a vast and diverse group of citizens, are violent.
There is no data to support a connection between the need for a representative
payee to manage one’s Social Security disability benefits and a propensity toward
gun violence. The rule further demonstrates the damaging phenomenon of “spread,”
or the perception that a disabled individual with one area of impairment
automatically has additional, negative and unrelated attributes. Here, the rule
automatically conflates one disability-related characteristic, that is, difficulty
managing money, with the inability to safely possess a firearm.
The rule includes no meaningful due process protections prior to the SSA’s
transmittal of names to the NICS database. The determination by SSA line staff that
a beneficiary needs a representative payee to manage their money benefit is simply
not an “adjudication” in any ordinary meaning of the word. Nor is it a
determination that the person “[l]acks the mental capacity to contract or manage his
own affairs” as required by the NICS. Indeed, the law and the SSA clearly state
that representative payees are appointed for many individuals who are legally competent.
We recognize that enacting new regulations relating to firearms can raise difficult questions. The
ACLU believes that the right to own and use guns is not absolute or free from government
regulation, since firearms are inherently dangerous instrumentalities and their use, unlike other
activities protected by the Bill of Rights, can inflict serious bodily injury or death. Therefore,
firearms are subject to reasonable regulation in the interests of public safety, crime prevention,
maintaining the peace, environmental protection, and public health. We do not oppose regulation of
firearms as long as it is reasonably related to these legitimate government interests.

The man tipped as frontrunner for the role of science adviser to Donald Trump has described climate scientists as “a glassy-eyed cult” in the throes of a form of collective madness.

William Happer, an eminent physicist at Princeton University, met with Trump last month to discuss the post and says that if he were offered the job he would take it. Happer is highly regarded in the academic community, but many would view his appointment as a further blow to the prospects of concerted international action on climate change.

“There’s a whole area of climate so-called science that is really more like a cult,” Happer told the Guardian. “It’s like Hare Krishna or something like that. They’re glassy-eyed and they chant. It will potentially harm the image of all science.”

Trump has previously described global warming as “very expensive … bullshit” and has signalled a continued hardline stance since taking power. He has nominated the former Texas governor Rick Perry, a staunch climate sceptic, as secretary of energy and hopes to put the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) under the leadership of Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general, who has been one of the agency’s most hostile critics.

John Holdren, Barack Obama’s science adviser, said Happer’s outspoken opinions would be a “substantial handicap” for a job that has traditionally involved delivering mainstream scientific opinion to the heart of policy-making.

“Every national academy of science agrees that the science is solid, that climate change is real,” he said. “To call this a cult is absurd and ... an insult to the people who have done this work.”

Happer also supports a controversial crackdown on the freedom of federal agency scientists to speak out about their findings, arguing that mixed messages on issues such as whether butter or margarine is healthier, have led to people disregarding all public health information.

“So many people are fed up of listening to the government lie to them about margarine and climate change that when something is actually true and beneficial they don’t listen,” he said, citing childhood vaccines as an example. “The government should have a reputation of being completely reliable about facts – real facts.”

Happer dismissed concerns that Trump is “anti-science”, saying he had a positive impression of the president during their January meeting. “He asked good questions – he was very attentive, actually,” he said.

Climate change was mentioned but was not the main focus of discussions, according to Happer, who revealed that Trump had expressed support for solar energy in areas like Arizona “where it makes sense”.

On February 16 2017 01:31 Logo wrote:


The arguments for are right here: https://waysandmeans.house.gov/hj-res40/

From the ACLU (for example):

On February 16 2017 01:31 Logo wrote:


The arguments for are right here: https://waysandmeans.house.gov/hj-res40/

From the ACLU (for example):