FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I am watching the press briefing, and I absolutely love how the very first question is Mnuchin saying "I will now take questions specifically about the Venezuelan Prime Minister"
And the press replying "So... Russia? What's up with that?"
Brietbart has two articles on their front page blaming Flynns resignation on Prebius. Guess Bannon is going to use this to leverage his power.
They're blaming it on a "sleeper cell" of Obama-era holdovers. So the narrative coming up is probably going to be about triggering a witch hunt for RoguePotusStaff among other leakers.
+4
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
edited February 2017
So will Trump beat out Warren G Harding as most corrupt president?
It's the kind of race to the bottom that would be interesting if it were another country.
Trump signs HJ RES 41, rolling back the SEC requirement that companies disclose payments to foreign governments for resource extraction rights.
Then completely misunderstands it? (Or just straight bullshits about it)
‘‘It’s a big deal,’’ Trump said as he signed the measure in the Oval Office. ‘‘The energy jobs are coming back. Lots of people going back to work now.’’
Going back to work... in other countries? Yeah, I guess, well done there.
Posting this in here because it seems singularly aimed at letting companies hide bribes to other countries.
Trump signs HJ RES 41, rolling back the SEC requirement that companies disclose payments to foreign governments for resource extraction rights.
Then completely misunderstands it? (Or just straight bullshits about it)
‘‘It’s a big deal,’’ Trump said as he signed the measure in the Oval Office. ‘‘The energy jobs are coming back. Lots of people going back to work now.’’
Going back to work... in other countries? Yeah, I guess, well done there.
Posting this in here because it seems singularly aimed at letting companies hide bribes to other countries.
Trump's complete lack of understanding of serious issues is going to allow for a ton of corruption.
Like it is going to be very easy for the police to get him to help out when it comes to fighting civil forfeiture reform given his extreme ignorance:
SHERIFF AUBREY: Sheriff John Aubrey, fifth-term sheriff, Jefferson County, Kentucky. Past president of National Sheriffs’ Association. And my fellow sheriffs have brought up a number of points, and I’d like to add two to it that I know are on your plate and the administration’s plate. The 1033 program, where we were sharing Department of Defense surplus material that helps us in our war. They were used in the war, and they helped us in our war. That got severely curtailed.
And the other thing is asset forfeiture. People want to say we’re taking money and without due process. That’s not true. We take money from dope dealers —
THE PRESIDENT: So you’re saying – okay, so you’re saying the asset-taking you used to do, and it had an impact, right? And you’re not allowed to do it now?
SHERIFF AUBREY: No, they have curtailed it a little bit. And I’m sure the folks are —
THE PRESIDENT: And that’s for legal reasons? Or just political reasons?
SHERIFF AUBREY: They make it political and they make it – they make up stories. All you’ve got to do —
THE PRESIDENT: I’d like to look into that, okay? There’s no reason for that. Dana, do you think there’s any reason for that? Are you aware of this?
[Then-acting Attorney General Dana Boente]: I am aware of that, Mr. President. And we have gotten a great deal of criticism for the asset forfeiture, which, as the sheriff said, frequently was taking narcotics proceeds and other proceeds of crime. But there has been a lot of pressure on the department to curtail some of that.
THE PRESIDENT: So what do you do? So in other words, they have a huge stash of drugs. So in the old days, you take it. Now we’re criticized if we take it. So who gets it? What happens to it? Tell them to keep it?
MR. BOENTE: Well, we have what is called equitable sharing, where we usually share it with the local police departments for whatever portion that they worked on the case. And it was a very successful program, very popular with the law enforcement community.
THE PRESIDENT: And now what happens?
MR. BOENTE: Well, now we’ve just been given – there’s been a lot of pressure not to forfeit, in some cases.
THE PRESIDENT: Who would want that pressure, other than, like, bad people, right? But who would want that pressure? You would think they’d want this stuff taken away.
SHERIFF AUBREY: You have to be careful how you speak, I guess. But a lot of pressure is coming out of – was coming out of Congress. I don’t know that that will continue now or not.
THE PRESIDENT: I think less so. I think Congress is going to get beat up really badly by the voters because they’ve let this happen. And I think badly. I think you’ll be back in shape. So, asset forfeiture, we’re going to go back on, okay?
SHERIFF AUBREY: Thank you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: I mean, how simple can anything be? You all agree with that, I assume, right?
Nobody in the administration has an incentive to educate him in ways that would hurt corruption.
Remember that time Hillary met with a Nobel laureate and it was widely seen as a major breech of ethics? Ah for the innocence of our youth.
The behavior of Chaffetz, the guy who loudly proclaimed pre-election that if Hillary was elected we would have four years of investigations, is ridiculous. I mean do they think people can't hear the things they say? That no one remembers things from more than a week ago? Do they just not see how blatant the hypocrisy is? Not even a fig leaf, just "Investigations? No, we don't do those here."
Their base literally does not. If they do, they have not cared for years. Republicans have figured out that simply not having any shame, so long as the actions aren't blatantly criminal, negates any action that would otherwise be disqualifying.
This is another reason why Flynn going down is big. Given that we had known about this for over a month, and so did the administration, he would only resign if something criminal were on the way or likely.
Brietbart has two articles on their front page blaming Flynns resignation on Prebius. Guess Bannon is going to use this to leverage his power.
They're blaming it on a "sleeper cell" of Obama-era holdovers. So the narrative coming up is probably going to be about triggering a witch hunt for RoguePotusStaff among other leakers.
congress won't do shit
the Justice Dept won't do shit
Really our best hope is Trump's attempts to silence the intelligence agencies makes them leak even more in retribution.
+24
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
edited February 2017
why should they turn on their own for corruption when everyone knows the democrats do much worse and we never hear about it because of the biased media and establishment?
Shockingly, Chaffetz has said there's no need for the Oversight Committee to investigate because the problem is "taking care of itself" and Nunes (chair of the Intelligence Committee) is more interested in who in the FBI leaked the transcripts.
So I guess this gets played out in leaks and in the media for a while longer instead of in Congress.
Fuck Jason Chaffetz. I hope he gets primaried by Evan McMullin or something.
Without pulling the thread too far afield, a house seat might be beneath McMullin's ambitions at this point.
Roy Blunt is calling for Senate investigation into the Russia ties, we'll see if that goes anywhere.
Blunt calling for an investigation?! Has my state's premier congressional asshat come down with the flu or something?
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
So the stance is that whatever Flynn did, there was nothing wrong with it.
He's been let go because he lied to Pence, about that thing he did that absolutely was not wrong. he just felt like hiding it for giggles.
A loss of trust is the problem, but everything he did was great, above board and not illegal in the least.
President Trump asked Michael Flynn to resign as national security adviser because of eroding trust —not because he violated the law, the White House said Tuesday.
In a briefing dominated by questions about Flynn, press secretary Sean Spicer repeatedly said the former national security adviser had done nothing wrong in talking to counterparts around the world, including from Russia.
He said Trump had fired Flynn not because of those conversations, but because Trump felt that his trust in Flynn had “eroded.”
“There is not a legal issue but rather a trust issue,” Spicer said, adding the circumstances surrounding Flynn’s talks with Russia created a “critical mass and an unsustainable situation.”
But, they knew he was lying to him almost a month ago. If he was fired for the coverup and not the crime...why did nothing happen until reports of his calls were leaked?
But, they knew he was lying to him almost a month ago. If he was fired for the coverup and not the crime...why did nothing happen until reports of his calls were leaked?
The word now supposedly is that Trump was directly told weeks ago about Flynn's call, but Pence didn't know until last Thursday. That alone says some interesting things about how factionalized this White House is.
If Flynn had told Pence the truth on the first place he would still have his job.
That's...a generous reading of the situation.
Another is that it was leaking out that Flynn was kompromised and the White House couldn't maintain even a whiff of distance from him anymore, so they let him go in order to maintain distance and try to head of investigation into how much the White House knew.
Which they undermined almost immediately.
Both Donald and Kellyanne's responses to this makes it pretty clear that when the DOJ told them about him being compromised that they already knew. Kellyanne's comments about the White House still having confidence in Flynn after being warned by the DOJ make sense if the White House already knew about the contents of the phone calls. They all knew already and continued to lie about them, but once the phone calls were leaked the White House claimed that they were lied to by Flynn.
You know you're fucked if Matt Lauer has been empowered to ask you an actual goddamn question.
+45
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
GOP is going to blow this chance to get rid of Trump while coming out clean
They could line up behind Cornyn or Graham, get the FBI and CIA info on Trump, and have him and his team out of office in short order for anything from Logan Act violations to breaking the Emolument Clause to possibly treason.
And they would still be in power, with Pence and Ryan calling the shots and some semblance of normalcy restored.
GOP is going to blow this chance to get rid of Trump while coming out clean
They could line up behind Cornyn or Graham, get the FBI and CIA info on Trump, and have him and his team out of office in short order for anything from Logan Act violations to breaking the Emolument Clause to possibly treason.
And they would still be in power, with Pence and Ryan calling the shots and some semblance of normalcy restored.
But!
I bet they whiff.
Don't even come up to the plate.
They hope this blows over, or some other not treasonous trump bullshit becomes the real story. And they aren't necessarily wrong.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
GOP is going to blow this chance to get rid of Trump while coming out clean
They could line up behind Cornyn or Graham, get the FBI and CIA info on Trump, and have him and his team out of office in short order for anything from Logan Act violations to breaking the Emolument Clause to possibly treason.
And they would still be in power, with Pence and Ryan calling the shots and some semblance of normalcy restored.
But!
I bet they whiff.
Don't even come up to the plate.
They hope this blows over, or some other not treasonous trump bullshit becomes the real story. And they aren't necessarily wrong.
But why? Their base may be all about all kinds of evil social issues crap, but they aren't. They don't give a monkeys. They just want more business first/go rich people stuff. Noone loves business first stuff more than Ryan. If they impeach Trump and Pence, and get Ryan in, then it gives them far more opportunity to get their work done with the Democrats happily snoozing away.
GOP is going to blow this chance to get rid of Trump while coming out clean
They could line up behind Cornyn or Graham, get the FBI and CIA info on Trump, and have him and his team out of office in short order for anything from Logan Act violations to breaking the Emolument Clause to possibly treason.
And they would still be in power, with Pence and Ryan calling the shots and some semblance of normalcy restored.
But!
I bet they whiff.
Don't even come up to the plate.
They hope this blows over, or some other not treasonous trump bullshit becomes the real story. And they aren't necessarily wrong.
But why? Their base may be all about all kinds of evil social issues crap, but they aren't. They don't give a monkeys. They just want more business first/go rich people stuff. Noone loves business first stuff more than Ryan. If they impeach Trump and Pence, and get Ryan in, then it gives them far more opportunity to get their work done with the Democrats happily snoozing away.
Because Trump is what their hard core voting base want. If they impeach him for liberal reasons (read anything at all) than their base turns on them and they lose elections to the Dave Brats of the world.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
"I mean we investigated the fuck out of Obama for literally every god damn thing we could think of, but Trump? Man we can't do the awful shit we said we would if we start actually doing our job."
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
"I just don't think it's useful to be doing investigation after investigation."
...is what EVERYBODY WITH TWO BRAIN CELLS TO RUB TOGETHER said after the millionth Benghazi / private e-mail server drumhead-trial-type hearing turned up yet another helping of nothingburger.
At least not until it strikes Trump's fancy to jettison her from the team. Eventually, every mouthpiece for the administration is going to be found wanting and hucked off the mountain to appease Trump's ego and need for control. And they all know this, on some level. You can see it in their eyes.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds.2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
It doesn't make sense to investigate the many potentially-destabilizing links this administration has a to a rogue superpower, especially now we have undeniable proof that it's been happening for months?
But hey, yeah, repeal that Obamacare, man. Get on it.
"I just don't think it's useful to be doing investigation after investigation."
...is what EVERYBODY WITH TWO BRAIN CELLS TO RUB TOGETHER said after the millionth Benghazi / private e-mail server drumhead-trial-type hearing turned up yet another helping of nothingburger.
....
...Flynnghazi
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Posts
A miserable pile of liberals
And the press replying "So... Russia? What's up with that?"
They're blaming it on a "sleeper cell" of Obama-era holdovers. So the narrative coming up is probably going to be about triggering a witch hunt for RoguePotusStaff among other leakers.
It's the kind of race to the bottom that would be interesting if it were another country.
We're not even a month in.
Then completely misunderstands it? (Or just straight bullshits about it)
Going back to work... in other countries? Yeah, I guess, well done there.
Posting this in here because it seems singularly aimed at letting companies hide bribes to other countries.
Trump's complete lack of understanding of serious issues is going to allow for a ton of corruption.
Like it is going to be very easy for the police to get him to help out when it comes to fighting civil forfeiture reform given his extreme ignorance:
The behavior of Chaffetz, the guy who loudly proclaimed pre-election that if Hillary was elected we would have four years of investigations, is ridiculous. I mean do they think people can't hear the things they say? That no one remembers things from more than a week ago? Do they just not see how blatant the hypocrisy is? Not even a fig leaf, just "Investigations? No, we don't do those here."
This is another reason why Flynn going down is big. Given that we had known about this for over a month, and so did the administration, he would only resign if something criminal were on the way or likely.
congress won't do shit
the Justice Dept won't do shit
Really our best hope is Trump's attempts to silence the intelligence agencies makes them leak even more in retribution.
Blunt calling for an investigation?! Has my state's premier congressional asshat come down with the flu or something?
~ Buckaroo Banzai
He's been let go because he lied to Pence, about that thing he did that absolutely was not wrong. he just felt like hiding it for giggles.
A loss of trust is the problem, but everything he did was great, above board and not illegal in the least.
EDIT: Spicer confirmed it:
Well, that bears out how they're dealing with Conway's recent flagrant lawbreaking.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Because they discounted the reports of the IC?
There's been many people saying this is going to be golden years for the comedy scene.
But I keep asking, "At what cost?"
That's...a generous reading of the situation.
Another is that it was leaking out that Flynn was kompromised and the White House couldn't maintain even a whiff of distance from him anymore, so they let him go in order to maintain distance and try to head of investigation into how much the White House knew.
Which they undermined almost immediately.
Both Donald and Kellyanne's responses to this makes it pretty clear that when the DOJ told them about him being compromised that they already knew. Kellyanne's comments about the White House still having confidence in Flynn after being warned by the DOJ make sense if the White House already knew about the contents of the phone calls. They all knew already and continued to lie about them, but once the phone calls were leaked the White House claimed that they were lied to by Flynn.
They could line up behind Cornyn or Graham, get the FBI and CIA info on Trump, and have him and his team out of office in short order for anything from Logan Act violations to breaking the Emolument Clause to possibly treason.
And they would still be in power, with Pence and Ryan calling the shots and some semblance of normalcy restored.
But!
I bet they whiff.
Don't even come up to the plate.
They hope this blows over, or some other not treasonous trump bullshit becomes the real story. And they aren't necessarily wrong.
pleasepaypreacher.net
But why? Their base may be all about all kinds of evil social issues crap, but they aren't. They don't give a monkeys. They just want more business first/go rich people stuff. Noone loves business first stuff more than Ryan. If they impeach Trump and Pence, and get Ryan in, then it gives them far more opportunity to get their work done with the Democrats happily snoozing away.
Because Trump is what their hard core voting base want. If they impeach him for liberal reasons (read anything at all) than their base turns on them and they lose elections to the Dave Brats of the world.
pleasepaypreacher.net
"Particularly of your own party" is very much saying the quiet part out loud.
"I mean we investigated the fuck out of Obama for literally every god damn thing we could think of, but Trump? Man we can't do the awful shit we said we would if we start actually doing our job."
pleasepaypreacher.net
...is what EVERYBODY WITH TWO BRAIN CELLS TO RUB TOGETHER said after the millionth Benghazi / private e-mail server drumhead-trial-type hearing turned up yet another helping of nothingburger.
At least not until it strikes Trump's fancy to jettison her from the team. Eventually, every mouthpiece for the administration is going to be found wanting and hucked off the mountain to appease Trump's ego and need for control. And they all know this, on some level. You can see it in their eyes.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
But hey, yeah, repeal that Obamacare, man. Get on it.
....
...Flynnghazi
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Perhaps they have just genuinely forgotten that investigations are meant to have the appearance of being in the pursuit of truth and/or justice.
Oh good point.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
pleasepaypreacher.net