US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8975

On October 12 2017 07:03 IyMoon wrote:



Why is it that you admit people know the root cause, and that it is wrong... but instead of fixing it they are angry that some people on the fringe called them names? So they whine about the name calling and just let slide the injustice they know is there because holy crap I got called a name?

It just seems so frustrating

On October 12 2017 07:03 IyMoon wrote:



Why is it that you admit people know the root cause, and that it is wrong... but instead of fixing it they are angry that some people on the fringe called them names? So they whine about the name calling and just let slide the injustice they know is there because holy crap I got called a name?

It just seems so frustrating

New York City has agreed to pay up to $75 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging police officers issued nearly 1 million legally baseless criminal summonses over several years...

"He doesn't want to certify the Iran deal for more domestic reasons than international ones," said Vali Nasr, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. "He doesn't want to certify that any piece of the Obama strategy is working."

At first it sounded like hyperbole, the escalation of a Twitter war. But now it’s clear that Bob Corker’s remarkable New York Times interview—in which the Republican senator described the White House as “adult day care” and warned Trump could start World War III—was an inflection point in the Trump presidency. It brought into the open what several people close to the president have recently told me in private: that Trump is “unstable,” “losing a step,” and “unraveling.”

The conversation among some of the president’s longtime confidantes, along with the character of some of the leaks emerging from the White House has shifted. There’s a new level of concern. NBC News published a report that Trump shocked his national security team when he called for a nearly tenfold increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal during a briefing this summer. One Trump adviser confirmed to me it was after this meeting disbanded that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a “moron.”

In recent days, I spoke with a half dozen prominent Republicans and Trump advisers, and they all describe a White House in crisis as advisers struggle to contain a president who seems to be increasingly unfocused and consumed by dark moods. Trump’s ire is being fueled by his stalled legislative agenda and, to a surprising degree, by his decision last month to back the losing candidate Luther Strange in the Alabama Republican primary. “Alabama was a huge blow to his psyche,” a person close to Trump said. “He saw the cult of personality was broken.”

According to two sources familiar with the conversation, Trump vented to his longtime security chief, Keith Schiller, “I hate everyone in the White House! There are a few exceptions, but I hate them!” (A White House official denies this.) Two senior Republican officials said Chief of Staff John Kelly is miserable in his job and is remaining out of a sense of duty to keep Trump from making some sort of disastrous decision. Today, speculation about Kelly’s future increased after Politico reported that Kelly’s deputy Kirstjen Nielsen is likely to be named Homeland Security Secretary—the theory among some Republicans is that Kelly wanted to give her a soft landing before his departure.

One former official even speculated that Kelly and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have discussed what they would do in the event Trump ordered a nuclear first strike. “Would they tackle him?” the person said. Even Trump’s most loyal backers are sowing public doubts. This morning, The Washington Post quoted longtime Trump friend Tom Barrack saying he has been “shocked” and “stunned” by Trump’s behavior.

While Kelly can’t control Trump’s tweets, he is doing his best to physically sequester the president—much to Trump’s frustration. One major G.O.P. donor told me access to Trump has been cut off, and his outside calls to the White House switchboard aren’t put through to the Oval Office. Earlier this week, I reported on Kelly’s plans to prevent Trump from mingling with guests at Mar-a-Lago later this month. And, according to two sources, Keith Schiller quit last month after Kelly told Schiller he needed permission to speak to the president and wanted written reports of their conversations.

The White House denies these accounts. “The President’s mood is good and his outlook on the agenda is very positive,” an official said.

West Wing aides have also worried about Trump’s public appearances, one Trump adviser told me. The adviser said aides were relieved when Trump canceled his appearance on the season premiere of 60 Minutes last month. “He’s lost a step. They don’t want him doing adversarial TV interviews,” the adviser explained. Instead, Trump has sat down for friendly conversations with Sean Hannity and Mike Huckabee, whose daughter is Trump’s press secretary. (The White House official says the 60 Minutes interview is being rescheduled.)

Even before Corker’s remarks, some West Wing advisers were worried that Trump’s behavior could cause the Cabinet to take extraordinary Constitutional measures to remove him from office. Several months ago, according to two sources with knowledge of the conversation, former chief strategist Steve Bannon told Trump that the risk to his presidency wasn’t impeachment, but the 25th Amendment—the provision by which a majority of the Cabinet can vote to remove the president. When Bannon mentioned the 25th Amendment, Trump said, “What’s that?” According to a source, Bannon has told people he thinks Trump has only a 30 percent chance of making it the full term.

The death toll has climbed to 21 as wildfires continue to blaze almost completely out of control in California’s wine country, and firefighters expect weather conditions to take a turn for the worse.

“Now the winds are going back up and the humidity is going back down,” said Heather Williams, a spokeswoman for Cal Fire, the state agency responsible for fire protection. “We’re still not out of the woods, it’s a very serious situation.”

In the tiny wine country town of Glen Ellen, where the ground was still smoking, Loren Davis of the Mountain volunteer fire department had a blunter assessment: “It’s a shitstorm.”

In the town of Santa Rosa, 50 miles north of San Francisco, entire neighborhoods have already been razed to the ground, leaving little more than charred heaps of belongings, skeletal trees and melted cars. More than 20,000 people have headed to evacuation centers across the region, with more leaving their homes as new areas are threatened.

Thirteen of the fatalities occurred in Napa and Sonoma counties, about an hour north of San Francisco, and the others in the state’s northern and eastern reaches – six in Mendocino county and two in Yuba county.

The Sonoma County sheriff, Robert Giordano, said the number of missing-persons reports had surpassed 600, up from about 200 a day earlier. But officials believe many of those people will be found, saying that the chaotic evacuations and poor communications over the past few days have made locating friends and family difficult.

He also expects the death toll to climb.

“The devastation is enormous,” he said. “We can’t even get into most areas.”

While it is not unusual for dozens of small fires to start each day in California, gusty conditions on Sunday night meant that 17 major fires quickly developed. Five additional major fires have ignited since then. Control remains minimal: the main fire burning in wine country is only at 3% containment, and the second-largest in the area is at 0%.

At least 3,500 homes and businesses have been destroyed since the wildfires started Sunday, making them the most destructive blazes in state history.

California’s governor, Jerry Brown, said on Wednesday that the federal government had pledged assistance, but pointed out that resources also are going to hurricane recovery efforts in Texas and Florida.

He was not circumspect about the context of the conflagrations. He said a warming climate had contributed to catastrophic wildfires and warned that they would continue to happen. Brown also noted that more people were living in communities close to forests and brush that easily ignite because of dry weather.

Officials in Napa County say almost half the population of Calistoga, famous for its hot springs and wineries, was ordered to evacuate before sunrise. Officials went through the town of 5,000 people block by block, knocking on doors to warn people to leave, Napa County supervisor Diane Dillon said.

Evacuations have also taken place in parts of the state that were previously unaffected – some residents in Solano County, abutting the San Francisco Bay estuary, have also been told to pack up.

In southern California, cooler weather and moist ocean air helped firefighters gain ground against a wildfire that has scorched more than a dozen square miles.

Orange County fire authority captain Steve Concialdi said the blaze was nearly halfway surrounded and full containment was expected by Saturday, but another round of gusty winds and low humidity levels could arrive late on Thursday.

About 8,000 firefighters are working across the state, along with 73 helicopters and 30 airtankers, according to a Cal Fire spokesperson. New resources are set to pour in following a request from California, including 175 engines from neighboring states and dozens more from federal agencies.

“We know it’s going to be very fluid in the next couple days, and so we want these resources to get here as soon as possible,” said Williams of Cal Fire.

Of the present fires, the Tubbs fire, in Sonoma County, has claimed the largest number of lives – 11. But it is far from the deadliest in state history. The 1933 Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles killed 29, while 1991’s Tunnel fire in Oakland caused 25 deaths.

Williams said she understood why some might be scared but encouraged pragmatism and vigilance instead.

“I think frightened is a normal emotion,” she said. “I think the best thing we can tell people is we need them to be prepare to be evacuated.”

On October 12 2017 09:48 Tachion wrote:

What a chilling and dysfunctional picture this paints. The people close to Trump don't trust him to tie his own shoes and he's got nuclear weapons at his disposal. Sarah Palin was criticized relentlessly for being unfit as VP should something happen to old John McCain, then 8 years pass and we end up with someone far worse in a far more prominent position. What the fuck America.

On October 12 2017 09:33 Saryph wrote:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/918267396493922304

At least twice in one day talking about gutting first amendment.

WASHINGTON — The North American Free Trade Agreement, long disparaged by President Trump as bad for the United States, was edging closer toward collapse as negotiators gathered for a fourth round of contentious talks here this week.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has sparred with American businesses that support Nafta and has pushed for significant changes that negotiators from Mexico and Canada say are nonstarters. All the while, the president has continued threatening to withdraw the United States from the trade agreement, which he has maligned as the worst in history.

As the trade talks began on Wednesday, Mr. Trump, seated in the Oval Office beside Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, said it was “possible” that the United States would drop out of Nafta.

“It’s possible we won’t be able to make a deal, and it’s possible that we will,” the president said. “We’ll see if we can do the kind of changes that we need. We have to protect our workers. And in all fairness, the prime minister wants to protect Canada and his people also. So we’ll see what happens with Nafta, but I’ve been opposed to Nafta for a long time, in terms of the fairness of Nafta.”

Mr. Trudeau, in comments later at the Canadian Embassy, said he remains optimistic about the potential for a Nafta deal but noted that Canadians must be “ready for anything.”

The collapse of the 1994 trade deal would reverberate throughout the global economy, inflicting damage far beyond Mexico, Canada and the United States and affecting industries as varied as manufacturing, agriculture and energy. It would also sow at least short-term chaos for businesses like the auto industry that have arranged their North American supply chains around the deal’s terms.

The ripple effects could also impede other aspects of the president’s agenda, for example, by solidifying political opposition among farm state Republicans who support the pact and jeopardizing legislative priorities like tax reform. And it could have far-reaching political effects, including the Mexican general election in July 2018 and Mr. Trump’s own re-election campaign.

Business leaders have become spooked by the increasing odds of the trade deal’s demise, and on Monday, more than 310 state and local chambers of commerce sent a letter to the administration urging the United States to remain in Nafta. Speaking in Mexico on Tuesday, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Thomas J. Donohue, said the negotiations had “reached a critical moment. And the chamber has had no choice but ring the alarm bells.”

“Let me be forceful and direct,” he said. “There are several poison pill proposals still on the table that could doom the entire deal.”

The potential demise of the trade deal prompted supportive messages from labor unions, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the United Steelworkers, as well as some Democrats.

“Any trade proposal that makes multinational corporations nervous is a good sign that it’s moving in the right direction for workers,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio.

If the deal does fall apart, the United States, Canada and Mexico would revert to average tariffs that are relatively low — just a few percent in most cases. But several agricultural products would face much higher duties. American farmers would see a 25 percent tariff on shipments of beef, 45 percent on turkey and some dairy products, and 75 percent on chicken, potatoes and high fructose corn syrup sent to Mexico.

For months, some of the most powerful business leaders in the country, and the lobbies and political figures that represent them, had hoped that the president’s strong wording was more a negotiating tactic than a real threat and that he would ultimately go along with their agenda of modernization. Nafta is nearly a quarter-century old, and people across the political spectrum say it should be updated for the 21st century while preserving the open trading system that has linked the North American economy.

The pact has allowed industries to reorganize their supply chains around the continent to take advantage of the three countries’ differing resources and strengths, lifting the continent’s economies and more than tripling America’s trade with Canada and Mexico since its inception. Economists contend that many workers have benefited from these changes in the form of higher wages and employment, but many workers have lost their jobs as manufacturing plants relocated to Mexico or Canada, making Nafta a target of labor unions, many Democrats and a few industries.

But most business leaders had hoped that the president, whose Nafta criticism has been unrelenting, would be content to oversee tweaks to modernize the agreement, and then call it a political transformation.

It sometimes looked as if that might be the case. The appointment of Robert Lighthizer as United States trade representative, who pledged in his confirmation hearing to “do no harm” to Nafta, reassured many on Capitol Hill, where Mr. Lighthizer had long served in aide roles. And when the administration released its negotiating goals in July for the deal, they echoed many priorities of previous administrations.

But now, eight weeks into trade talks that were originally supposed to conclude by year’s end, the administration continues to push for concessions that the business community warns would essentially undermine the pact, and which few observers believe Canada and Mexico could agree to politically.

“Everyone knows that much of what is being proposed in key areas are, in effect, non-starters, which begs the question as to what, exactly, the administration is trying to achieve,” Michael Camuñez, a former assistant secretary of commerce under President Barack Obama, wrote in an email. It’s not unreasonable to think that by accommodating the president’s most extreme positions, American negotiators are “simply giving Trump cover to do what he really wants: withdraw from the agreement,” he said.

Phil Levy, a trade adviser for the George W. Bush administration, said the president was most likely looking for a pretext to kill Nafta.

“Find me the last trade agreement that U.S. passed with the chamber in opposition,” Mr. Levy said. “You don’t have a chance. It’s hard enough with the U.S. Chamber in favor.”

The most controversial of the administration’s proposals, floated by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, would incorporate a sunset clause in the deal, causing Nafta to automatically expire unless all three countries voted periodically to continue it. That provision has drawn swift condemnation from the chamber and other industry groups like the National Association of Manufacturers, which say that it would instill so much uncertainty in the future of Nafta that it would basically nullify the trade agreement.

Another contentious push by the United States centers on changing Nafta’s rules governing how much of a product needs to be made in North America in order to enjoy tariff-free trade between the countries. The United States is pushing for higher levels, including a requirement to make 85 percent of the value of automobiles and auto parts in North America, up from 62.5 percent currently, and an additional requirement for 50 percent of the value to come from the United States.

That has pitted some of the world’s biggest auto companies against the Trump administration. Industry representatives say such high and complex barriers could deter companies from manufacturing in the United States altogether.

On October 12 2017 06:00 sertas wrote:


But i thought statistically it adds up this so called unfair treatment? At least Ben shapiro said this on some youtube video.

On October 12 2017 10:42 Plansix wrote:
Can we not fuck around with nafda while the man who thinks the US can walk away from debt obligations is in office?

On October 12 2017 11:11 Plansix wrote:
https://twitter.com/BenSasse/status/918296123269189632

This is new.

On October 12 2017 11:24 zlefin wrote:

what's new about it? all I see is someone sassing trump on twitter.

On October 12 2017 11:27 Plansix wrote:

That's a press release and it's a Republican senator challenging the presidents attack on the first amendment. Normally they are silent on the subject.