US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7325

On April 12 2017 11:37 Plansix wrote:
Much like the military in the US, the police are glorified by modern media and eat up the coverage. Even shows like the Shield glorify the misbehaving cop that takes matters into his own hands. We have a long history of loving police that "do what is right because the system won't".

And the problem with racial profiling in the US is that police are given a lot of discretion and handle everything from violent assaults to cars that have a broken headlight. They have unlimited reasons to pull you over. One city in the US told all police to only pull people over for moving dangerous driving offenses and forget the car inspection violations. It has done amazing things for their relationship with minorities in the community and reduced the disproportionate number of minorities pulled over. And the cops love it because they don't have to worry about the small shit like a missing muffler.

We saddle the police with to much work in the US, to many roles. They are expected to do everything and make value judgments about everything. And be held accountable.

On April 12 2017 11:38 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:
It's buzfeed but yeah chicago PD has problems https://www.buzzfeed.com/melissasegura/detective-guevaras-witnesses?bftw&utm_term=.snv7akKX3#.xebbqedoG

Washington (CNN)After a review of the same intelligence reports brought to light by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers and aides have so far found no evidence that Obama administration officials did anything unusual or illegal, multiple sources in both parties tell CNN.

Their private assessment contradicts President Donald Trump's allegations that former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice broke the law by requesting the "unmasking" of US individuals' identities. Trump had claimed the matter was a "massive story."
However, over the last week, several members and staff of the House and Senate intelligence committees have reviewed intelligence reports related to those requests at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.
One congressional intelligence source described the requests made by Rice as "normal and appropriate" for officials who serve in that role to the president.
And another source said there's "absolutely" no smoking gun in the reports, urging the White House to declassify them to make clear there was nothing alarming in the documents.
Still, some members of Congress continue to have concerns about the justification given for the unmasking requests and the standards for the intelligence community to grant such requests, which reveal the private data of US persons mentioned in intelligence reports based on routine intelligence collection aimed at foreign nationals.

Washington’s rumor mill is working overtime on the fate of aide Steve Bannon, who is said to be at the center of the rampant White House in-fighting. When I asked the President Tuesday afternoon if he still has confidence in Bannon, who took over the campaign in mid-August, I did not get a definitive yes.

“I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” Trump said. “I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve. I’m my own strategist and it wasn’t like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary.”

He ended by saying, “Steve is a good guy, but I told them to straighten it out or I will.”

On April 12 2017 19:29 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
So is Bannon on the way out? Trump already lying he didn't know him before the campaign



http://nypost.com/2017/04/11/trump-wont-definitively-say-he-still-backs-bannon/

Democrats are beginning to craft an economic message for 2018 that goes beyond the tempting, single-minded strategy of demonizing Donald Trump.

Licking their wounds after an embarrassing showing in November, Democrats vowed to charge into next year’s midterms with a proactive sales pitch to voters. While many, including party leaders, have fallen right back into the same anti-Trump pattern they say cost them 2016 in the first place, top Democrats now say they’re working on “a strong, sharp-edged, bold economic message,” as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer put it Tuesday.

Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have met twice, according to aides, in addition to multiple staff-level meetings, to flesh out a broader economic agenda that’s expected to emerge as soon as early summer.

The package will be “populist” and designed to “unite both wings of both caucuses,” one senior Democratic aide said. Infrastructure and trade are expected to be key components, another aide confirmed.

Though Democrats have long diagnosed their failure to put forth a compelling economic message as a root cause of their crushing 2016 losses, their pursuit of a populist package this year reflects the lasting influence of Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid on their longer-term agenda. And after initially sending different signals about their plans, with aides expecting a cohesive campaign message would not emerge until next year, House and Senate Democrats now insist they are moving on the same track.

“We’re spending a lot of time on this,” Schumer told reporters Tuesday, vowing that Democrats would “hammer on” their economic proposals throughout the midterm campaign.

Still, Democrats say they don't feel pressure to issue their own economic manifesto immediately. As the GOP suffers self-inflicted wounds on health care and Trump gets bogged down by an FBI probe of his ties to Russia, many in the party believe they should not risk getting in the way, at least not for now.

“It’s less important what our national message is right now, given that Donald Trump is sucking all of the oxygen out of the room,” moderate Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) told POLITICO.

“Quite frankly, the less we have to say about it, the better.”

Senate Democrats have already rolled out a $1 trillion infrastructure plan — though they haven’t fully addressed the thorny question of how they’ll pay for it — and a paid family leave package. Having staked out a detailed position on two of Trump’s core campaign-trail promises to middle-class voters, their sense of urgency is lower.

“We’ll continue to build on it, but we’ve already gone out there and laid out our vision,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in an interview.

But unlike the rough and tumble weeks after the election — House Democrats threatened to oust their longtime leader, and messy spats about the party’s missing message tumbled into the open — some lawmakers say they’re OK shooting barbs at Trump instead of laying out their own plan for voters.

“We have no message right now,” said one moderate House Democrat who asked not to be named to speak candidly. “But we don’t need one either.”

Kind, the former chairman of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, was one of several lawmakers demanding the party do some serious soul searching after Democrats’ long-held “blue wall” collapsed as Rust Belt voters turned to Trump.

The Wisconsin Democrat voted against Pelosi for another term as Democratic leader and wasn’t shy about criticizing party elites for an election message that did little to motivate working-class whites. But, for now, he and several other lawmakers say targeting Trump is the best thing they can do.

Still, Kind and other like-minded members stressed Democrats will have to develop their own agenda in the coming months — and be able to really sell it — to avoid getting caught flat-footed again in 2018.

“I believe we owe it to the American people to say, ‘Here is a Democratic way of thinking about these issues,'” said Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, current chairman of the New Democrat Coalition. “I’m not sure it’s right now.”

Privately, party leaders insist the midterms will be a referendum on Trump’s first two years in office no matter what they do. And that’s a battle they’re confident they can win.

Pelosi still brings up Democrats’ “Six for ‘06” plan, their 2006 midterm playbook that was a play on Republicans’ famous “Contract for America” from the 1990s.

The Democrats’ 2006 game plan — a referendum on then-President George W. Bush and a handful of digestible talking points on things like national security and health care — was wildly successful. Democrats took back both the House and Senate, and Pelosi became the first female House speaker in history.

But some lawmakers and aides say relying on a decade-old strategy in a wildly different political environment is not a winning formula. The key, say those critics, is to start pushing a forceful economic message now.

On April 12 2017 19:29 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
So is Bannon on the way out? Trump already lying he didn't know him before the campaign



http://nypost.com/2017/04/11/trump-wont-definitively-say-he-still-backs-bannon/

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Last August, a handwritten ledger surfaced in Ukraine with dollar amounts and dates next to the name of Paul Manafort, who was then Donald Trump's campaign chairman.

Ukrainian investigators called it evidence of off-the-books payments from a pro-Russian political party - and part of a larger pattern of corruption under the country's former president. Manafort, who worked for the party as an international political consultant, has publicly questioned the ledger's authenticity.

Now, financial records newly obtained by The Associated Press confirm that at least $1.2 million in payments listed in the ledger next to Manafort's name were actually received by his consulting firm in the United States. They include payments in 2007 and 2009, providing the first evidence that Manafort's firm received at least some money listed in the so-called Black Ledger.

The two payments came years before Manafort became involved in Trump's campaign, but for the first time bolster the credibility of the ledger. They also put the ledger in a new light, as federal prosecutors in the U.S. have been investigating Manafort's work in Eastern Europe as part of a larger anti-corruption probe.

Separately, Manafort is also under scrutiny as part of congressional and FBI investigations into possible contacts between Trump associates and Russia's government under President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. The payments detailed in the ledger and confirmed by the documents obtained by the AP are unrelated to the 2016 presidential campaign and came years before Manafort worked as Trump's unpaid campaign chairman.

In a statement to the AP, Manafort did not deny that his firm received the money but said "any wire transactions received by my company are legitimate payments for political consulting work that was provided. I invoiced my clients and they paid via wire transfer, which I received through a U.S. bank."

Manafort noted that he agreed to be paid according to his "clients' preferred financial institutions and instructions."

Previously, Manafort and his spokesman, Jason Maloni, have maintained the ledger was fabricated and said no public evidence existed that Manafort or others received payments recorded in it.

The AP, however, identified in the records two payments received by Manafort that aligned with the ledger: one for $750,000 that a Ukrainian lawmaker said last month was part of a money-laundering effort that should be investigated by U.S. authorities. The other was $455,249 and also matched a ledger entry.

On April 12 2017 19:35 farvacola wrote:
The only problem is that Trump without his alt-right puppeteers just turns into another Dubya given that he's been got by the GOP war establishment.

On April 12 2017 19:35 farvacola wrote:
The only problem is that Trump without his alt-right puppeteers just turns into another Dubya given that he's been got by the GOP war establishment.

On April 12 2017 22:25 TheTenthDoc wrote:


It takes the Donald to say you don't know someone when you were a regular guest on their radio show and were even their first interviewee after the show formally moved to Breitbart.

It's amazing that he doesn't think people will google his claims or that those of his supporters who do won't care when he throws out these pointless lies. It's also amazing that he's right that his googling supporters won't care and will if anything see it as yet another evil media manipulation.