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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.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. |
On May 13 2017 06:37 Plansix wrote:
And now Congress is sending letters requesting clarification about Trump’s tweet and tapes of conversations. Because Congress can totally get that if it exists.
I want one of the congressional investigative committees to subpoena them and Trump to claim executive privilege. Then the fireworks really start.
But since this is just Trump's ego about Comey telling him he wasn't under investigation, it won't happen. Comey would have been wrong to say it, and might have actually been telling different people different things to try and please everybody.
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I think chances are quite high that Trump isn't even willingly lying at this point or at the least doesn't realize that he is. There have been multiple reports talking about how WH staff are lying to him on purpose because they know he won't accept the truth unless it's exactly what he wants. Only feeding him information he wants to hear no matter if it's true or not.
So in this case, everyone knows that there's no way Comey said what Trump claims he told him but Trump wants to hear that. So I wouldn't say it's unlikely that 1-3 WH staffers told Trump about how they themselves were assured that and Trump is going from there?
//woah, typing 1:20am in the morning is bad
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Did the fox writer just accidently admit that no investigain into trump or impeachment can happen while the Republicans have the house? Accidental slip maybe when describing the worst case scenario for them?
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On May 13 2017 05:13 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2017 05:03 Gorsameth wrote:On May 13 2017 05:01 Plansix wrote:
Trump has straight up made an enemy of the entire intelligence and federal law enforcement community.
And again, this is why business people shouldn’t be fast tracked to high office.
There are plenty of smart business people who would adept pretty quick to high office. Trump is not one of them. The vast majority of business owners I know and have worked for or with have been walking embodiments of the dunning kruger effect. That creating your own business is like obtaining super powers. Of course that is not true across the board, but the US culture lionizes CEO’s and heads of companies as visionaries.
Indeed. When it comes to generalized personality disorders, business owners are a close second to lawyers.
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On May 13 2017 08:00 Nevuk wrote:Note the source + Show Spoiler +DEFENDERS OR ENABLERS?
Let’s start at the beginning: The president of the United States said that part of his reason for firing the top federal investigator was his handling of a criminal probe into the president’s election campaign.
In the same interview with NBC News, President Trump even said that he had asked former FBI Director James Comey whether the investigation was targeted at the president himself.
No matter what, these are serious and significant developments. If you find yourself dismissing them or focusing on misplaced partisan reactions to them, you are doing no service to Trump or the country.
Full stop.
In life and in politics there is a line between defending someone and enabling them. What is happening these days with Trump and his core supporters is getting way past defense.
In the end, if Trump is proven right, and there was no information sharing or collusion between his campaign and Kremlin-allied entities, the president’s intemperate comments will not add up to much.
All this will have been is a sorry incident in which a frustrated commander in chief lashed out against his critics, making his reputation and his staff collateral damage in the process. Also harmed will have been Trump’s agenda and the already weak bonds of trust between him and his fellow Republicans in Congress.
And that’s the best case scenario.
The darker side of the street looks like this: Democrats retake the House in 2018, investigators find that one of Trump’s underlings had been in cahoots with Putinists and Trump’s remark to Lester Holt “when I decided to [fire Comey], I said to myself, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story,” would surely make it into the articles of impeachment.
This is deadly serious stuff. And many of the president’s supporters seem either unaware or unwilling to confront the situation as it exists. Just because one thinks that Democrats are hysterical in their responses to Trump does not mean that Trump is doing the right things.
His team had been, under the adverse conditions Trump created for them, working hard to offer the best rationale for firing Comey: That the former director’s mishandling of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s case left him unable to suitably lead the agency.
Whether Trump was frustrated by not getting adequate credit for toppling Comey, a man he clearly had come to despise, or if Trump did not understand the legal and communications necessities of the moment doesn’t matter. Whatever the reason, Trump harmed himself, his party and his agenda.
No matter how much his supporters want Trump to succeed, if they can’t be clear-eyed and plainspoken about the current situation things are going to get worse, not better.
The undisciplined, erratic approach to a scandal that represents mortal peril for this presidency is not primarily the fault of bad staff work, the “lying press” or Democrats. It is primarily the fault of a president who steadfastly refuses to empower his staff, show respect for the separation of powers or exhibit patience.
There will always be people who will tell the president that escapades like the one this week are a refreshing departure from stuffy old Washington and that all he really needs to do is keep kicking the walls of the barn down until he gets his way.
There will always be such people because there will always be, in any administration or organization, those willing to enable damaging behavior in order to gain power and access.
What Trump badly needs now is straight talk and honest appraisal from his advisers and supporters and desperation enough to be willing to listen.
So a "news agency" is not worried that Trump is doing stuff he shouldn't be doing, but that he isn't hiding them better. Cool.
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"I have stated repeatedly that we have to follow the money..."
That seems like a very dangerous phrase for pretty much any politician to be tossing around; well any American politician anyway.
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Two scientists resigned from a key Environmental Protection Agency science advisory board on Friday in an act of protest against a decision this week removing the board's co-chairmen, according to a resignation letter sent by one of the scientists.
"It is with certain regret and concern — and in protest — that we submit our resignations as members of the Sustainable and Healthy Communities Subcommittee of the Board of Scientific Counselors" for the EPA, says the letter from scientists Peter Meyer and Carlos Martin.
Martin tweeted the letter, saying, "Just resigned from EPA subcommittee to protest removal of [Robert Richardson] @ecotrope & Courtney Flint," who headed the board. "Painful professional decision," Martin added.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group representing environmental scientists, said the resignations were "largely due to the administration's efforts to water down credible science and the recent removal of the subcommittee's co-chairs," according to spokesman Seth Michaels.
EPA officials have been adamant that the departure of the co-chairmen and several others earlier this week was not a dismissal or firing. The agency simply did not seek to renew a number of scientists' terms on the board and allowed them to expire, the EPA said.
Washington Examiner
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On May 13 2017 08:09 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2017 06:37 Plansix wrote:
And now Congress is sending letters requesting clarification about Trump’s tweet and tapes of conversations. Because Congress can totally get that if it exists. I want one of the congressional investigative committees to subpoena them and Trump to claim executive privilege. Then the fireworks really start. But since this is just Trump's ego about Comey telling him he wasn't under investigation, it won't happen. Comey would have been wrong to say it, and might have actually been telling different people different things to try and please everybody.
This feels like a last ditch assumption to keep an interpretation together that none of this is all that bad. First you assumed that Rosenstein's letter was the real reasoning, so everything is okay. Now this. Notice that all you have on your side is Trump's word.
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Throughout Donald Trump’s business career, some executives who came to work for him were taken aside by colleagues and warned to assume that their discussions with the boss were being recorded.
“There was never any sense with Donald of the phone being used for private conversation,” said John O’Donnell, who was president of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in the 1980s.
For O’Donnell and others who have had regular dealings with Trump through the years, there was something viscerally real about the threat implied by the president’s tweet Friday morning warning that fired FBI director James B. Comey “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
“Talking on the phone with Donald was a public experience,” said O’Donnell, author of a book about his former boss, “Trumped: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump.” “You never knew who else was listening.”
www.washingtonpost.com
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Trump's actual claim of what Comey said is just Trump being a weasel.
"I actually asked him, yes," Trump said. "I said, 'If it's possible, would you let me know, am I under investigation?' He said, 'You are not under investigation.'"
Holt pointed out that Comey has given sworn testimony that there is an ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign and possible collusion with the Russian government.
"I know that I'm not under investigation, me, personally," Trump said. "I'm not talking about campaigns, I'm not talking about anything else."
insider.foxnews.com
He's saying "me personally", when the investigation encompasses much more, like his campaign and everyone associated with it. So he's trying to weasel his way out with the technicality that his campaign, rather than him personally, is what's under investigation. But naturally, since he's part of the campaign, he comes under the umbrella of the investigation.
Trump has used this "me personally" weasel wording in the past, in depositions, to distinguish between himself and his company in deceitful ways. As detailed in The Making of Donald Trump.
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#DonTheCon
Despite Trump’s tough talk on lobbyists, he’s let quite a few of them in through the back doors of the White House and federal agencies. For example, Michael Catanzaro, who serves as the top White House energy adviser, was until late last year a lobbyist for major energy clients as they fought the Clean Power Plan.
Chad Wolf is another example. He is now chief of staff at the Transportation Security Administration, despite lobbying that agency for the past several years to have it spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a new carry-on luggage screening device. It should come as no surprise that device is now being tested and considered for purchase by TSA staff.
Lance Leggitt, Tom Price’s chief of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services, worked as a lobbyist last year for 10 different healthcare companies.
And Christian Palich, the former president of the Ohio Coal Association and a former registered lobbyist, has joined the Environmental Protection Agency’s congressional team.
The list goes on and on. So, how do so many foxes get away with running the hen house? In January Trump issued an executive order that did away with President Barack Obama’s 2009 rule that executive branch appointees not accept jobs in agencies they recently lobbied.
Trump also has eliminated the policy of publicly sharing waivers that allow lobbyists in the government to take up matters that could benefit former clients. Previously posted on the Government Ethics Website, none have been posted since Trump took office. Walter M. Shaub Jr., the director of the Office of Government Ethics, has no idea how many waivers have been issued by Trump.
www.dcreport.org
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Sweden33719 Posts
On May 13 2017 06:57 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +I would recognize a crisis if it were happening.
When the president seized me, stunned me with his venom and covered me with digestive fluid from his chelicerae, I was initially taken aback, but I reassured myself with this thought: President Richard Nixon never did that.
I know history.
This is clearly not the end of the world. That would be more clearly labeled and would be brought about by the other party. And the weather would be more ominous. Ravens would squawk, and the sky would turn red. It would not occur on a Tuesday when I had made other plans.
Okay, the firing of FBI Director James Comey looked bad. And when the president stunned him, pierced him with his fangs, wrapped him in a thick cocoon of impenetrable webbing and left him to hang there for days, that timing was also poor. It doesn’t seem as though it was what the FBI wanted or what the deputy attorney general wanted, either. But the American people voted for change! And the president is not Nixon. Nixon fired people on a Saturday, whereas this happened on a Tuesday.
He does not sweat and look pale on TV, which Nixon always did. Also, history plainly states that Nixon was born in 1913, one of several siblings, whereas the president was born in 1946, one of 3,000 eggs. Already we are seeing huge discrepancies! Nixon had only two legs.
Nixon was married to a woman named Pat who wore Republican cloth coats. I think we can agree that we are talking about someone different. Come back when he is threatening people with secret “tapes” of his conversations when our leader has adopted a small dog named Checkers, and then we will see where we stand.
This has none of the historical signs of a crisis. We still believe in small government, and that doesn’t have to change because the person or entity presiding over it happens to be a giant spider.
I think of the many norms that are still going strong as the digestive acid begins to eat its way through my flag pin.
We got an appointee for the Supreme Court! That, already, is a great accomplishment.
If this were a real crisis, there would be no other news. An alert would go over the TV. It would say, “Democracy Alert!” and make an unpleasant sound. In the meantime, I’m glad those Unicorn Frappuccinos are gone.
But the background music has not crescendoed. I look out the window, and the sun is shining. On the television the colorful heads are speaking as they have always spoken, and they are still not in agreement. I think. It is getting harder to see in here, and I feel a curious warmth spreading through all my appendages. I would not feel this way if something really serious were going on. The polls would reflect it, too.
I am still getting what I wanted. It is good to have someone in the Oval Office who shares my values: covering everything with giant webs, eating flies and restoring our relationship with Russia. I think I once had other values but, well, winning is winning.
Also, we have yet to see what this will become. We don’t know that a special prosecutor is called for.
It is quite possible that the thing spewing its webbing everywhere in the Oval Office is not in its final form. Perhaps it will ultimately look like Merrick Garland. We should wait. Really, everything depends on the next move. Which will, of course, set the terms for the move after that. All of which we must contemplate and look into.
It’s very dark.
If we are ever in a point of real crisis, I will be the hero the country requires. I know that about myself. But in the meantime, I stand behind the president, who I am positive is not literally Nixon.
Besides, if it were really bad, Paul Ryan would say something.
I want to sleep.
If this were a crisis, something would be done by someone. A hero would emerge. Not one of these people I am used to working with, with whose flaws and biases I am too well acquainted, but a real hero, unimpeachable. Me, perhaps.
If there were an occasion, I would be rising to it. But I am not rising. Source
Kind of getting a Neil Gaiman vibe, not bad!
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On May 13 2017 09:18 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2017 08:09 Danglars wrote:On May 13 2017 06:37 Plansix wrote:
And now Congress is sending letters requesting clarification about Trump’s tweet and tapes of conversations. Because Congress can totally get that if it exists. I want one of the congressional investigative committees to subpoena them and Trump to claim executive privilege. Then the fireworks really start. But since this is just Trump's ego about Comey telling him he wasn't under investigation, it won't happen. Comey would have been wrong to say it, and might have actually been telling different people different things to try and please everybody. This feels like a last ditch assumption to keep an interpretation together that none of this is all that bad. First you assumed that Rosenstein's letter was the real reasoning, so everything is okay. Now this. Notice that all you have on your side is Trump's word.
Trump's tweets this morning were bad. Trump's response in general has been bad, but by that I mean what him and his communication team haven't been pushing hard with. And for the second, I'm guessing based on Comey's CYA attitude and Trump's tweets afterwards about tape recordings. You can stop putting words in my mouth that everything is okay; only Trump's dismissing of Comey was okay and I salute his decision.
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On May 13 2017 09:45 Doodsmack wrote:#DonTheCon Show nested quote +Despite Trump’s tough talk on lobbyists, he’s let quite a few of them in through the back doors of the White House and federal agencies. For example, Michael Catanzaro, who serves as the top White House energy adviser, was until late last year a lobbyist for major energy clients as they fought the Clean Power Plan.
Chad Wolf is another example. He is now chief of staff at the Transportation Security Administration, despite lobbying that agency for the past several years to have it spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a new carry-on luggage screening device. It should come as no surprise that device is now being tested and considered for purchase by TSA staff.
Lance Leggitt, Tom Price’s chief of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services, worked as a lobbyist last year for 10 different healthcare companies.
And Christian Palich, the former president of the Ohio Coal Association and a former registered lobbyist, has joined the Environmental Protection Agency’s congressional team.
The list goes on and on. So, how do so many foxes get away with running the hen house? In January Trump issued an executive order that did away with President Barack Obama’s 2009 rule that executive branch appointees not accept jobs in agencies they recently lobbied.
Trump also has eliminated the policy of publicly sharing waivers that allow lobbyists in the government to take up matters that could benefit former clients. Previously posted on the Government Ethics Website, none have been posted since Trump took office. Walter M. Shaub Jr., the director of the Office of Government Ethics, has no idea how many waivers have been issued by Trump. www.dcreport.org
I think at this point the only benefit to having Trump elected is showing the Democrats how useless they are. Even Republicans too to an extent. When you lose to someone who so blatantly exhibits corruption and incompetence on the regular, it's time to take a step back and examine your platform. God knows we could use it after all this.
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On May 13 2017 09:50 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2017 09:18 Doodsmack wrote:On May 13 2017 08:09 Danglars wrote:On May 13 2017 06:37 Plansix wrote:
And now Congress is sending letters requesting clarification about Trump’s tweet and tapes of conversations. Because Congress can totally get that if it exists. I want one of the congressional investigative committees to subpoena them and Trump to claim executive privilege. Then the fireworks really start. But since this is just Trump's ego about Comey telling him he wasn't under investigation, it won't happen. Comey would have been wrong to say it, and might have actually been telling different people different things to try and please everybody. This feels like a last ditch assumption to keep an interpretation together that none of this is all that bad. First you assumed that Rosenstein's letter was the real reasoning, so everything is okay. Now this. Notice that all you have on your side is Trump's word. Trump's tweets this morning were bad. Trump's response in general has been bad, but by that I mean what him and his communication team haven't been pushing hard with. And for the second, I'm guessing based on Comey's CYA attitude and Trump's tweets afterwards about rape recordings. You can stop putting words in my mouth that everything is okay; only Trump's dismissing of Comey was okay and I salute his decision.
surely you mean tape?
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On May 13 2017 09:55 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2017 09:45 Doodsmack wrote:#DonTheCon Despite Trump’s tough talk on lobbyists, he’s let quite a few of them in through the back doors of the White House and federal agencies. For example, Michael Catanzaro, who serves as the top White House energy adviser, was until late last year a lobbyist for major energy clients as they fought the Clean Power Plan.
Chad Wolf is another example. He is now chief of staff at the Transportation Security Administration, despite lobbying that agency for the past several years to have it spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a new carry-on luggage screening device. It should come as no surprise that device is now being tested and considered for purchase by TSA staff.
Lance Leggitt, Tom Price’s chief of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services, worked as a lobbyist last year for 10 different healthcare companies.
And Christian Palich, the former president of the Ohio Coal Association and a former registered lobbyist, has joined the Environmental Protection Agency’s congressional team.
The list goes on and on. So, how do so many foxes get away with running the hen house? In January Trump issued an executive order that did away with President Barack Obama’s 2009 rule that executive branch appointees not accept jobs in agencies they recently lobbied.
Trump also has eliminated the policy of publicly sharing waivers that allow lobbyists in the government to take up matters that could benefit former clients. Previously posted on the Government Ethics Website, none have been posted since Trump took office. Walter M. Shaub Jr., the director of the Office of Government Ethics, has no idea how many waivers have been issued by Trump. www.dcreport.org I think at this point the only benefit to having Trump elected is showing the Democrats how useless they are. Even Republicans too to an extent. When you lose to someone who so blatantly exhibits corruption and incompetence on the regular, it's time to take a step back and examine your platform. God knows we could use it after all this.
perhaps; but mostly it shows that things like platforms and decent plans are meaningless; and random stupid shit will happen sometimes; and idiotic crazy mobs will destroy things.
I mean, if voters choose to vote for someone who's blatantly corrupt and incompetent, that says something about how useless the voters are.
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On May 13 2017 09:55 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2017 09:45 Doodsmack wrote:#DonTheCon Despite Trump’s tough talk on lobbyists, he’s let quite a few of them in through the back doors of the White House and federal agencies. For example, Michael Catanzaro, who serves as the top White House energy adviser, was until late last year a lobbyist for major energy clients as they fought the Clean Power Plan.
Chad Wolf is another example. He is now chief of staff at the Transportation Security Administration, despite lobbying that agency for the past several years to have it spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a new carry-on luggage screening device. It should come as no surprise that device is now being tested and considered for purchase by TSA staff.
Lance Leggitt, Tom Price’s chief of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services, worked as a lobbyist last year for 10 different healthcare companies.
And Christian Palich, the former president of the Ohio Coal Association and a former registered lobbyist, has joined the Environmental Protection Agency’s congressional team.
The list goes on and on. So, how do so many foxes get away with running the hen house? In January Trump issued an executive order that did away with President Barack Obama’s 2009 rule that executive branch appointees not accept jobs in agencies they recently lobbied.
Trump also has eliminated the policy of publicly sharing waivers that allow lobbyists in the government to take up matters that could benefit former clients. Previously posted on the Government Ethics Website, none have been posted since Trump took office. Walter M. Shaub Jr., the director of the Office of Government Ethics, has no idea how many waivers have been issued by Trump. www.dcreport.org I think at this point the only benefit to having Trump elected is showing the Democrats how useless they are. When you lose to someone who so blatantly exhibits corruption and incompetence on the regular, it's time to take a step back and examine your platform. God knows we could use it after all this.
Like, for example, what your stance is on reproductive law. Y'all just lost a mayor's fight that was looking pretty good. Until Perez was pressed to condemn a must-inform stance on sonograms.
Responding to the criticism, the Democratic committee chairman Tom Perez declared that, "every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman's right to make her own choices." His comment sparked a fierce debate within the party over whether there should be an abortion rights litmus test, with Mello caught in the middle.
"It's astounding that our party chairman would say pro-life Democrats are not welcome," Nebraska Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb told The Associated Press Tuesday as Mello conceded defeat.
I'll give you this: not every state DNC chairwoman is as dumb as their party's leader. Just my reminder that working on the platform is easier said than done.
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On May 13 2017 09:58 prplhz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2017 09:50 Danglars wrote:On May 13 2017 09:18 Doodsmack wrote:On May 13 2017 08:09 Danglars wrote:On May 13 2017 06:37 Plansix wrote:
And now Congress is sending letters requesting clarification about Trump’s tweet and tapes of conversations. Because Congress can totally get that if it exists. I want one of the congressional investigative committees to subpoena them and Trump to claim executive privilege. Then the fireworks really start. But since this is just Trump's ego about Comey telling him he wasn't under investigation, it won't happen. Comey would have been wrong to say it, and might have actually been telling different people different things to try and please everybody. This feels like a last ditch assumption to keep an interpretation together that none of this is all that bad. First you assumed that Rosenstein's letter was the real reasoning, so everything is okay. Now this. Notice that all you have on your side is Trump's word. Trump's tweets this morning were bad. Trump's response in general has been bad, but by that I mean what him and his communication team haven't been pushing hard with. And for the second, I'm guessing based on Comey's CYA attitude and Trump's tweets afterwards about rape recordings. You can stop putting words in my mouth that everything is okay; only Trump's dismissing of Comey was okay and I salute his decision. surely you mean tape?
Yeah, typing on my phone.
+ Show Spoiler +
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both parties have indeed been shrinking in the amount of variation they're willing to support, and that is troubling indeed.
it's a pity there's asshole who have to make things like must-inform sonogram laws that made it an issue in the first place, but ya can't help bad people being bad. making the polarization worse is coming from all sides; or at least most sides, depending on how many you count there being.
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EPT
