US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7520

On May 13 2017 09:58 zlefin wrote:

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.

On May 13 2017 10:10 NewSunshine wrote:

I will say he did put up his own kind of act during the campaign, because during the campaign you're all talk. Now that he's in office, the talk is the same, but what he's doing never lines up with what he's saying at any point, and it looks atrocious in the extreme. Of course you're also right in that the voter base is at this point impure, because people on average are far more preoccupied with partisan politics than actually doing what's right for the country. Too many people voted Trump just to "stick it" to the Democrats.

The Justice Department last month requested banking records of Paul Manafort as part of a widening of probes related to President Donald Trump’s former campaign associates and whether they colluded with Russia in interfering with the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the matter.

In mid-April, federal investigators requested Mr. Manafort’s banking records from Citizens Financial Group Inc., the people said.

...

Separately, investigators for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman as well as Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. also have been examining real-estate transactions by Mr. Manafort, who has spent and borrowed tens of millions of dollars in connection with property across the U.S. over the past decade, people familiar with the matter say. The request for Mr. Manafort’s banking records and the New York inquiries haven’t previously been reported.

...

The Journal also reported that since the mid-2000s, around the time Mr. Manafort started working as a political adviser to wealthy pro-Russia politicians in the Ukrainian Party of Regions, he and immediate family members bought at least six properties in New York, Florida and Virginia for more than $16 million, property records show.

Also in late March, WNYC public radio station reported on Mr. Manafort’s use of corporate entities to purchase multimillion-dollar properties without mortgages, some of which he later took loans against. NBC News reported around the same time that a Cyprus bank had investigated accounts associated with Mr. Manafort for possible money laundering, and that he had closed them after questions were raised.

Experts in government accountability, including President George W. Bush’s former White House ethics counsel, warn that billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s status as an unpaid White House adviser represents a serious conflict of interest and a possible violation of federal law.

In particular, they say Icahn’s company raised red flags with a successful bet on falling prices for biofuel credits that may be linked to his influence at the White House.

The story begins in December, when Donald Trump’s transition team announced that his friend Icahn would serve as “a special advisor to the President on regulatory reform.” In that role, Icahn has urged Trump to make changes to the federal renewable fuel (better known as ethanol) standards that would benefit one of Icahn’s companies, CVR, which owns two oil refineries. The Trump administration leaked in February that it is actively considering the rule changes Icahn advocates, such as shifting the obligation to buy biofuel credits from the refiner to the companies that actually blend ethanol into gasoline. Freeing refineries of that burden would be a boon to their bottom lines. Thanks to Icahn’s influence in the White House and the possibility of such helpful policy changes, CVR’s stock price has surged, benefitting Icahn, the majority stakeholder.

But a Reuters report last week added an even more confusing — and, good-government advocates say, improper — wrinkle. Thanks to the threat of Icahn’s desired regulatory changes, the value of tradable renewable fuel credits has taken a nosedive. And guess which company recently bet $50 million on shorting renewable fuel credits: Icahn’s CVR.

On May 13 2017 12:06 Danglars wrote:

Bland but whatever. That's kinda what Trump supports are doing. We're saddened by Trumo's morning tweets, saddened by DNC afternoon responses, saddened by the media evening tweets. And then lather rinse repeat tomorrow.

Just hours after White House spokesman Sean Spicer said President Trump had received assurances from a key senator that the idea of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia was a “hoax,” a spokesman for the senator, Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, denied any such conversation.

“Sen. Grassley has not spoken to President Trump about what he has learned in briefings related to investigations into Russian interference in our elections, and he has never referred to the notion of collusion as a ‘hoax,’” Grassley’s spokesman, Taylor Foy, emailed Yahoo News. Grassley is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and together with ranking minority member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has been briefed on details of the FBI investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election.

On May 13 2017 12:27 Doodsmack wrote:


But not saddened by Trump firing Comey based on his actions related to the Russia investigation. I think you're missing the gravity of the situation - even if it's true that it's overhyped to some extent by the media.

On May 13 2017 13:48 GreenHorizons wrote:


If by gravity you mean how stupid it was to have such a system in the first place, when there was nothing but perception stopping anyone from doing this.

Or that dumping an unfriendly FBI head isn't that unusual, just being such a lazy, petulant, dick about it is.

The Trump/Russia connection probably has significant financial ties, personally compromising Trump to some degree, but it's obviously not the big story the non-stop coverage from Maddow would suggest.

The big sign that's it's probably much to do about very little, is how the focus and accusations have shifted over time. It went from "Russia Hacked the Election to make Trump win" to "Members of the Trump team may have said improper things to Russians, and he's done business with Russians for years, so they probably wanted him to win sorta"

On May 13 2017 12:27 Doodsmack wrote:


But not saddened by Trump firing Comey based on his actions related to the Russia investigation. I think you're missing the gravity of the situation - even if it's true that it's overhyped to some extent by the media.

On May 13 2017 14:50 Danglars wrote:

And likewise I question your judgment at nearly every post. You can't quote Sarah Sanders without mangling her clear meaning or make criticism without cranking it up to 11. Watching left mania is one reason we can't have nice things, and why you got Trump. Please don't give Hillary the helm in 2020, guys!

On May 13 2017 14:42 Doodsmack wrote:


I think I like the idea of changing the system for FBI directors though, maybe they could only be impeached by Congress or something.

CORONADO, Calif. — With the White House in meltdown mode, top Republican Party officials and operatives gathered at a posh oceanside resort here and contemplated a 2018 midterm election that will test them in unimaginable ways.

At the Republican National Committee’s spring meeting, strategists expressed alarm about a pair of upcoming special House elections and what they might portend for the battle for the lower chamber next year. One high-profile potential candidate outlined how he would distinguish himself from the embattled president.

And, as often happens with a party in peril, fingers were already being pointed over next year’s races.

The private talks over the three-day meeting pulled back the curtain on a Republican Party leadership grappling with a profoundly unstable White House. While some attendees shrugged off the firestorm surrounding the firing of FBI Director James Comey and put a positive spin on the latest Trump controversy, others conceded they were struggling to adapt to a a political moment without precedent.

“I don’t think there is anything to compare it to. You have a non-politician who’s the president, so he doesn’t do things in a political way and that completely drives insiders of both parties bonkers because they don’t understand it,” said Randy Evans, a Republican National Committeeman from Georgia who was a top adviser to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “Right now, we’re just in a completely different and foreign political environment where pollsters and pundits and focus groups don’t matter.”

“Anybody that tells you they have a feel for what’s going to happen next year is just delusional,” he added.

The House elections took center stage at the meeting, since the Senate is seen as much less likely to change hands.

In one presentation on the GOP's challenges ahead, the National Republican Congressional Committee’s executive director, John Rogers, pointed out that far more vulnerable Republican incumbents represent districts that Hillary Clinton won than endangered Democratic incumbents in districts that Trump carried. Rogers reminded attendees that midterm elections are historically unkind to the party in the White House.

And he offered a surprisingly gloomy forecast of looming special elections that the party has been favored to win. While the race for a Georgia House seat is a tossup, he said, one in Montana later this month is closer than public polling indicated.

While Republicans have a far more favorable playing field in the Senate, they weren’t overly optimistic about those elections, either. National Republican Senatorial Committee Executive Director Chris Hansen noted at one closed-door briefing that the party was expected to notch big gains in the 2010 midterms but “whiffed,” according to one person present.

One of the attendees at that session was Jeff Essmann, who as Montana's Republican Party chairman is working to salvage the congressional seat. Republicans, Essmann said, face as volatile an environment as he could remember in his four decades in politics.

“The bottom line is that we’ve got to recruit well, we’re going to have to raise a bunch of money,” he said. “Democrats are upset that they lost, they didn’t think that was going to happen. They’re motivated, and we’re going to have to redouble our efforts.”

Over margaritas and seafood on the sun-drenched back patio of the Hotel del Coronado, GOP operatives began sketching out what a 2018 campaign would look like — and how they would contend with an unpredictable president with record-low approval ratings. San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who is being recruited by party leaders to run for California governor, said Republicans running in challenging political terrain would be able to differentiate themselves from the president by casting themselves as inclusive and highlighting local issues.

“To be successful in California is to be successful across party lines,” said Faulconer, who noted that he spoke Spanish in the first TV ad of his mayoral campaign. “You have to have Democrats, you have to have independents, you have to have Republicans. That message of bringing people together is incredibly important.”

This week’s meeting wasn’t all gloom and doom. After eight years of being locked out of the presidency, many attendees were still basking in the afterglow of Trump’s stunning election win, even if some of them were slow to come around to him during the campaign. A few wore “Make America Great Again” hats, and there was talk that the summer meeting will be in Washington, which would give RNC members proximity to the White House.

A Kentucky appellate court on Friday ruled that the Christian owner of a printing shop in Lexington had the right to refuse to make T-shirts promoting a local gay pride festival.

The dispute represents the latest court fight testing the limits of antidiscrimination protections for gays and lesbians following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 landmark ruling legalizing gay marriage nationwide.

The cases have led to a number of state court rulings against Christian-owned businesses that refused to bake cakes, design floral arrangements or take portrait photographs for same-sex weddings.

The ruling by the Kentucky Court of Appeals favored the business owner. A crucial difference in this case was the expressive nature of the service denied: literally words on a shirt.

In a split vote, a three-judge panel concluded that the store, Hands on Originals, couldn’t be forced to print a message with which the owner disagreed.

The dispute started in 2012 when Gay and Lesbian Services Organization in Kentucky asked Hands on Originals to make T-shirts with the name and logo of a pride festival.

Blaine Adamson, owner of Hands on Originals, said he refused to print the shirts because it violated his business’s policy of not printing messages that endorse positions in conflict with his convictions.

Mr. Adamson offered examples of other orders he refused, such as shirts featuring the word “bitches” or a depiction of Jesus dressed as a pirate.

The gay-rights group filed a complaint with the Lexington Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission, which in 2014 ordered Mr. Adamson to make the shirts.

Friday’s decision affirmed an earlier ruling from a lower court. The commission, which brought the appeal, said the store was in violation of a local “fairness” ordinance banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in places of public accommodation.

The Kentucky Court of Appeals, one level below the state’s Supreme Court, disagreed, ruling that the conduct by the business wasn’t discrimination, rather a decision not to promote certain speech.