US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9052

On October 25 2017 01:24 Danglars wrote:


Seriously, Trump, you're uniquely blessed by the quality of your enemies. You'd be below 20 approval without them. Find your next focus for the outrage cycle.

On October 25 2017 01:07 GreenHorizons wrote:


I have to give you credit for getting all the mileage you can out of that quote. You know it's the same thing Frederick Douglass was saying when you tried to pretend you understood him before?

EDIT: Take the L, I'm getting secondhand embarrassment.

Addressing the media on Capitol Hill, the outgoing Tennessee Senator again blasted Trump for what he deems a failure of leadership.

“You would think he would aspire to be the President of the United States. And act like a president of the United States,” Corker said. “You know, that’s just not going to be the case apparently. And it’s up to others who serve in an elected capacity — whether they’re governors or mayors or senators — to try conduct themselves in a manner that is more becoming of a leader. He’s obviously not up to that.”

And then he made this remarkable claim about the White House staff.

[I’ve had] multiple occasions where the staff has asked me to please intervene. He was getting ready to do something that was really off the tracks.

Yes, Corker contends that the White House staff has actually leaned on him to step in when their boss is preparing to do something they consider to be out of bounds. A truly stunning claim.

The retiring Senator added, “I’ve seen no evolution in an upward way. As a matter of fact, I would say it appears to me that it’s almost devolving.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.

On October 25 2017 00:27 ChristianS wrote:
Here's the thing that confuses me. Trump supporters are an amorphous group without public statements or actions for us to scrutinize and determine what they believe. It's hard enough to demonstrate whether someone is racist or not when you can look at their words and actions; it's probably impossible to have a good evidence-based discussion on whether Trump supporters are racists or not.

But it's not hard to show Trump said a lot of racially inflammatory things (i.e. things many of us liberals would consider racist). That was a constant theme of his campaign, so the obvious question is, why? I can imagine a few explanations:

1) Trump's not racist, he's just an idiot who says dumb (sometimes racially inflammatory) stuff; and Trump supporters don't like it, but they tolerate it because he has other things going for him.

2) Trump's racist, so he says racially inflammatory stuff; but his supporters don't like it, they just tolerate it because he has other things going for him.

3) Trump's not racist, but he says racially inflammatory stuff because his supporters like it when he says that stuff.

4) Trump's a racist, but he only says racially inflammatory stuff openly because his supporters like it when he says that stuff.

Looking at how both the primary and general went, I see little evidence that Trump's racially inflammatory comments were a detriment to his campaign. The Judge Curiel thing maybe hurt him a little in the polls, and the Khizr Khan stuff seemed like it did, but that might have just been the convention bounce for Hillary. Meanwhile "they're rapists and drug dealers," dragging victims of violent crimes committed by Hispanics out in front of rallies, etc. didn't seem to hurt him at all. Nor did people pointing out his buildings discriminating against blacks in the 70's. Nor did people bringing up the "Black guys counting my money! I hate it" stuff.

At a certain point, you have to consider the possibility that either 3 or 4 was at least partially true – that part of Trump's surprising success stemmed from people underestimating how much people wanted to hear their politicians say racist stuff. This isn't to say that all Trump supporters are racist, or that racism is the primary reason Trump won, but it is to say that if race doesn't factor into your explanation of Trump winning, or if it does only in the form of "non-racist people were tired of being called racist so they voted for a guy that says racist stuff," you're missing something.

On October 25 2017 01:52 IyMoon wrote:


Dude, you're going way too hard on this comparison of mine when I was trying to dumb down something you did not seem to be getting.


So you are saying the ends justify the means when it comes to americas past? That because it did some good things that it is okay that it was built on a lot of shit? That you dont even see it as bad because of what happened?

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has directed millions of dollars in political contributions since 2014 to a network of Washington operatives that prominent conservatives have accused of profiting by misleading donors.

Beneficiaries of Zinke’s largesse include groups linked to Washington-area political operative Scott B. Mackenzie, organizer of a Virgin Islands GOP political action committee that hosted the secretary at a St. Croix fundraiser in March. Before that, when Zinke was a Republican congressman from Montana, his political operation steered significant portions of its spending to a handful of Washington, D.C.-area consulting firms that also have had ties to Mackenzie and his associates.

Zinke has continued this relationship even as other Republicans have recoiled from dealing with Mackenzie, whose critics say he operates "scam PACs" that raise small-dollar donations from conservative voters but then spend the bulk of the money on consultants and overhead. The critics include former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who filed a suit accusing Mackenzie and other defendants of running a “national fundraising scam” after they gave his 2013 campaign for governor less than a half percent of the money they had raised in his name.

Similarly, Zinke’s own leadership PAC also relied heavily on small donors while spending heavily on consultants, in a departure from how most members of Congress operate those kinds of groups.

The details about Zinke's fundraising and spending practices have not been previously reported, nor has his years-long relationship with Mackenzie’s Virgin Islands Republican Party, a group that some Republicans in the Caribbean island chain have accused of misrepresenting itself to donors. POLITICO’s analysis of Federal Election Commission filings, plus interviews with campaign finance lawyers and people familiar with the Virgin Islands group’s fundraising, offer a deeper picture of the political activism of the retired Navy SEAL who serves in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.

None of the records indicate that Zinke violated the law or received any direct compensation from his association with Mackenzie, the Virgin Islands PAC or its consultants. But one campaign finance expert said the information shows that Zinke was not behaving like a typical politician.

“To say the least, this is highly unusual,” said Karl Sandstrom, a former Democratic FEC commissioner who now works at the law firm Perkins Coie.

An Interior Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the assistance Zinke has offered to the Virgin Islands group or his use of political consultants. Mackenzie declined to be interviewed, and officials from the Virgin Islands organization — also known as VIGOP — did not respond to requests for comment.

Zinke is separately facing investigations by Interior's internal watchdog and the independent Office of Special Counsel over his habit of mixing politics and official business.

Legal limits on Zinke’s partisan activities have tightened now that he’s Interior secretary, and he has cut ties with his PACs since being sworn in. Still, he has kept up appearances at fundraisers and other political events — averaging more than one per month — a pace that is unusual for a Cabinet member. Those include his appearance at the March fundraiser in the Virgin Islands, which occurred during a taxpayer-funded trip less than a month after he became secretary.

Complaints among Republicans about “scam PACS” have been on the rise for years, focusing on groups that target conservative voters as a source for donations. Those complaints have repeatedly focused on Mackenzie, the founder of a number of GOP-leaning PACs that have used slogans such as “Stop Hillary Clinton” to raise money from conservatives — then appeared to do little actual politicking.

Such groups make use of what past FEC leaders have described as a loophole in campaign finance law. The commission declined to take action against one of Mackenzie’s Virginia-based PACs, the Conservative StrikeForce, after former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) complained in 2012 that it had been “fraudulent” in raising money from his supporters while falsely implying it would aid his reelection campaign. While the PAC’s actions were "troubling," the commission’s attorneys wrote, they didn’t violate any laws or rules that the FEC has the power to enforce.

Cuccinelli made similar criticisms in his 2014 lawsuit, which accused Mackenzie, Conservative StrikeForce and other defendants of using the bulk of the money they had raised in his name to “enrich themselves.” The case was eventually settled, with Conservative StrikeForce agreeing to pay Cuccinelli's campaign $85,000 and turn over its donor lists.

Conservative commentator Erick Erickson warned campaigns as far back as 2010 that he might not endorse any Republican candidate who used one Mackenzie-linked consulting firm, then known as Base Connect and now called ForthRight Strategy. Montana Democrats accused Zinke of facilitating a "political Ponzi scheme" with his connections to Mackenzie-linked firms during his 2014 congressional campaign, though the charges apparently gained little traction.

PowerPost House leaders begin new investigation of Obama-era uranium deal
Nunes announces probe into uranium deal during Obama’s tenure


House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) announces a probe into a deal on U.S. uranium mines reached under the Obama administration. (The Washington Post)
By Karoun Demirjian
October 24 at 1:03 PM
Leading House Republicans are beginning an investigation of the Obama administration’s handling of a deal that gave a Russian-owned company control over 20 percent of the United States’ supply of uranium, an episode that the Trump campaign used to try to discredit Democratic rival Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential race.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that the panel has “been looking into this for a while now” but elected to formally start the inquiry in light of new evidence, reported in the Hill, that the FBI had been investigating Russian efforts to influence the American nuclear industry through various corrupt schemes.

Nunes said the first goal of the investigation, for which the Intelligence Committee is partnering with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is determining “was there actually an open FBI investigation or not.”


Oversight committee member Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) said Tuesday that members had identified a “witness who was a confidential informant who wants to talk about his role in this” but were trying to first get the witness released from a nondisclosure agreement with the Justice Department.


The uranium deal in question dates to 2009, when state-owned Russian nuclear energy company Rosatom began buying shares in Uranium One, a company based in Toronto with interests in the United States. The next year, Rosatom sought to assume majority ownership in Uranium One — a deal that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) had to approve. Russia later assumed full ownership of the company.


At the time, Clinton was secretary of state, leading one of nine government agencies comprising CFIUS. Notably, Nunes did not mention Clinton’s name Tuesday as he announced his investigation — instead, he, DeSantis and Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) focused on the involvement of then-Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, and the extent to which the Justice Department and the FBI had been scrutinizing the transaction or the entities involved.

The House is not the first body to resurrect the Russian uranium deal — last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee also announced that it would be investigating the matter.

In a C-SPAN interview Monday, Clinton said the new focus on the uranium deal is “baloney” and evidence that the Trump administration is worried and trying to deflect attention away from the ongoing probes into the Trump team’s alleged ties to the Kremlin.

Nunes has become a focal point of such efforts before. Earlier this year, he came under fire for suggesting that the Obama administration had inappropriately unmasked the identities of members of the Trump transition team, and perhaps the president himself. He made those allegations after visiting the White House, leading Democrats to accuse him of coordinating his efforts with the Trump administration. Nunes, now the subject of an ethics inquiry for his actions, subsequently handed over the reins of the committee’s investigation of Russian election meddling to Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.), but he has not recused himself from the inquiry.

Nunes said Tuesday that he has not spoken with the White House about the uranium matter. But when asked whether he would brief the White House in the future, he would not commit to continuing to steer clear of the
King, appearing with Nunes, insisted that the investigation of the uranium deal was a separate matter entirely from the committee’s ongoing inquiry of Russian election meddling.

“This is totally different from the election issue . . . it has nothing to do with the Russian election,” King said, stressing that his focus, at the time of the deal and now, was primarily driven by concerns about “why 20 percent of the U.S.’s uranium supply was being given to a Russian-owned company.”