US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9165

On November 07 2017 07:37 Biff The Understudy wrote:
I still refuse to believe that anyone is stupid enough to think that the problem to gun violence is more guns. I give all those people the benefit of the doubt and assume they are hypocritical.

On November 07 2017 07:37 Biff The Understudy wrote:
I still refuse to believe that anyone is stupid enough to think that the problem to gun violence is more guns. I give all those people the benefit of the doubt and assume they are hypocritical.

On November 07 2017 07:44 ShoCkeyy wrote:
The shooter was a huge piece of shit, but nothing on the paradise papers. Fun...

On November 07 2017 07:51 Gorsameth wrote:

The easy answer is that the NRA bribes, I mean donates, to them.

On November 07 2017 07:52 Jockmcplop wrote:


I think people fall into one of two categories when it comes to leaks like the paradise papers:
1: Indifferent because they somehow believe that its possible to deserve that much money.
2: Indifferent because the system is irreversibly fucked so what's the point?

So far, the only angry person I've seen was one of the guys who BBC Panorama tried to interview about it.

On November 07 2017 08:09 GreenHorizons wrote:


I mean it's at the core of my critique of the US and politics in general but no one gives a shit other than how it might make Trump look bad. No one (politically) really wants to go there though because they all represent people who do this shit on the reg.

On November 07 2017 07:44 ShoCkeyy wrote:
The shooter was a huge piece of shit, but nothing on the paradise papers. Fun...

On November 07 2017 08:13 Jockmcplop wrote:


Where do you start when the people making the decisions are the same people who benefit from rigging the system?
Its rotten. You do get the odd politician who cares or even really tries to change things but they are so overwhelmingly outnumbered that its pointless trying.

On November 07 2017 07:44 ShoCkeyy wrote:
The shooter was a huge piece of shit, but nothing on the paradise papers. Fun...

On November 07 2017 08:28 GreenHorizons wrote:


Start by telling yourself that "I am a revolutionary in the international proletarian revolution" and/or buy lube so it hurts less.

On November 07 2017 07:44 ShoCkeyy wrote:
The shooter was a huge piece of shit, but nothing on the paradise papers. Fun...

On November 07 2017 09:09 kollin wrote:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n02/slavoj-zizek/the-revolt-of-the-salaried-bourgeoisie

Read this? Remarkably prescient

The proletarianisation of the lower salaried bourgeoisie is matched at the opposite extreme by the irrationally high remuneration of top managers and bankers (irrational since, as investigations have demonstrated in the US, it tends to be inversely proportional to a company’s success). Rather than submit these trends to moralising criticism, we should read them as signs that the capitalist system is no longer capable of self-regulated stability – it threatens, in other words, to run out of control.

On November 07 2017 09:32 ShoCkeyy wrote:
The problem is that the discussion never comes up. So then it never gets discussed... The reason why the yawns happen is because those same people linked are always going to try and keep the status quo. By keeping the status quo, people like me who work a shit ton of hours to make what I make get fucked every year to pay for their bullshit, when I can be paying medical bills for the people who were shot.

Obviously we're not all thinking the same.

Van Jones, CNN political commentator: The Democrats had this attitude, which I think is very unhealthy and unproductive, that any acknowledgement that Trump had a chance was somehow helping Trump, and that we all had to be on this one accord that it was impossible for him to win. I thought that was stupid. I've never seen that strategy work.


Matt Oczkowski, formerly of Cambridge Analytica (Trump campaign data firm): When you see outlets like the Huffington Post giving Trump a 1 percent probability of victory, which is not even physically possible, it's just like, “Wow, people are going to miss this massively.”

Bret Baier, Fox News chief political anchor: We got the exit polls at 5 p.m. in a big office on the executive floor. Rupert Murdoch and all the staff were there. It looked like we were going to call the race for Hillary Clinton at 10:30 or 11 p.m.


Steve Bannon: The exit polls were horrific. It was brutal. I think we were close in Iowa and Ohio and everything else was just brutal. Losing everywhere. Florida, Pennsylvania. I mean, it looked like a landslide.

Maggie Haberman, The New York Times: When I went downstairs at 8:15, Hillary was up in Florida. When I came back upstairs, it had flipped. I got a sense the second I set foot in the newsroom that something was going on.

David Remnick: Not only did I not have anything else ready, I don't think our site had anything, or much of anything, ready in case Trump won. The mood in the offices, I would say, was frenetic.

Dave Weigel: I’m in the parking lot of the Scalise party. There are Republicans drinking, some celebrating, some not paying attention. My editor was calling to see when I would hand in my story. One, I’m on a minor story that’s falling apart, and two, I’m probably in the wrong place. Three, I need to reorder the story, and four, how much did I tell people confidently about the election that I was wrong about?

On November 07 2017 10:32 Danglars wrote:
We’re coming up in the anniversary! I remember those sweet old days before Trump started messing with people’s sanity.


Recollections are also organized by time reported.

Esquire

A top adviser to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross served on the board of Navigator Holdings, a shipping company whose clients include a Russian energy company with Kremlin ties, while she was working in the Trump administration.

Wendy Teramoto retained her seat on Navigator’s board after joining Commerce in mid-March as a part-time adviser to Ross, one of the most influential voices in President Donald Trump’s ear on global trade and economic policy. She also continued to serve as an executive of Ross’s private equity firm WL Ross & Co. after becoming a government employee.

Teramoto didn’t resign her seat on Navigator’s board until July 17, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. She left WL Ross that same month. On Aug. 1, she was formally named Ross’s chief of staff.

Her role with Navigator is notable because Ross has come under scrutiny after the release of a cache of documents by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on Sunday that showed him profiting from investments in Navigator, which does significant business with Sibur, an energy company partly owned by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law. Sibur has not been subject to U.S. sanctions on Russian energy companies, though one of its owners is, according to the ICIJ report.

Ross has denied any wrongdoing. He has recused himself from transoceanic shipping matters and has said that he met all disclosure requirements, despite some Democratic lawmakers’ claim that the link between his investments and Russia were not fully revealed.

The matter has also grabbed attention because relationships between senior members of Trump’s inner circle and Russia are under increasing scrutiny from prosecutors and congressional investigators.

The overlap between Teramoto’s board tenure and her time at the Commerce Department could be problematic because it’s yet another point of connection between Russian financial interests and the Trump administration, even if no government violations occurred. It’s also not known whether Teramoto was receiving compensation from Navigator or influencing company decisions while she was serving at Commerce.

A Commerce spokesman downplayed Teramoto’s role, describing her job from March 14 until Aug. 1 as a “part-time special government position as an advisor to the Secretary of Commerce.”

Before being named the secretary’s full-time chief-of-staff on Aug. 1, she resigned from outside non-federal positions, the spokesman said.

Teramoto did not respond to a request for comment, and the Commerce Department press shop did not respond to a more detailed list of questions regarding Teramoto’s employment.

Two government employees who have worked with Teramoto described her role at Commerce during the months she remained on Navigator’s board as more significant, saying she was Ross’s closest ally and aide.

Along with Ross, Teramoto attended President Donald Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in early April, according to one of the government employees, who was familiar with the guest list.

By mid-April, Teramoto was trading emails with officials at Commerce, Treasury, the National Security Council, and the U.S. Trade Representative.

The Commerce spokesman said Teramoto signed an ethics pledge upon her initial appointment to the agency and is subject to the same disqualification requirements under conflict of interest statutes as the secretary and other federal employees.

He also said Ross was not involved with Navigator negotiations with Sibur.

“Secretary Ross has never met the Sibur shareholders referenced in this story and, until now, did not know of their relationship,” the spokesman said. Ross has recused himself from matters involving trans-oceanic shipping vessels and supports the Trump administration’s sanctions against Russian entities, the spokesman said.

A spokeswoman at Navigator did not respond to questions about Teramoto’s compensation as a board member or the timing of her resignation. Executives of the petrochemical shipping company met in August at the Coral Beach and Tennis Club in Bermuda to vote in her replacement on the board, according to the company’s SEC filings.

Ross’s namesake company, WL Ross & Co., is Navigator’s biggest shareholder and has the right to designate two directors to the shipping company’s board. In January, Ross said he would divest holdings in WL Ross, its parent company and other firms.

Ross said Monday in an interview with the BBC that there is “nothing whatsoever improper” about the relationship between Navigator and Sibur.

Jeaneen Terrio, a spokeswoman for WL Ross parent company Invesco, declined to answer questions about Teramoto’s tenure at the company except to confirm that Teramoto left in July.

Richard Painter, who served as a White House chief ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, said that even part-time employees are subject to conflict-of-interest statutes. Serving on the board of a company or holding stock could be a conflict, Painter said, if Teramoto worked on policy issues that had a direct effect on Navigator’s bottom line.

“The key to all of this is understanding what both she and Secretary Ross were doing at Commerce,” Painter said.