[Discussion] Hope to Remember The Trump Administration Thread as being 'transparent and honest'

Let's follow and discuss what our newest presidential administration gets up to, the good, the bad, the lawsuits, and the many many indictments.

Trump sparks confusion with tweet on North Korea-related sanctions
*he is more like the rambling, incoherent uncle at Thanksgiving with every day.

President Donald Trump triggered rampant confusion among his own aides and administration officials when he said Friday he is withdrawing new sanctions aimed at North Korea that were just issued by his own administration.

"It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea. I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!" Trump tweeted on Friday.

Trump's announcement amounted to a startling rebuke of policy action announced by his own government, once again calling attention to the unconventional and undisciplined policy process that has often defined the Trump administration. The White House declined to give details on the sudden policy shift, but said Trump was pulling back newly-issued sanctions because he "likes" North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un.

If anyone if feeling a little underwhelmed, exasperated or anxious about Mueller time, the Barr summary, and the general state of our federal government, you might want to check out the relevant Opening Arguments podcast. Hopefully it will provide some legal perspective.

For the record, I am all three.

I tried to listen to that earlier and didn't make it more than 15 minutes in. There is a lot of rambling and very little substance during that time. Maybe it gets better later. I think they had a guest lawyer?

Betsy DeVos could have spent her sixties making life miserable for the people of Ada, Michigan -- a small town the Devoses basically invented when Grand Rapids got too liberal for them.

Instead she spent it taking money away from starving kids and disabled kids. What a truly evil woman. Trump is a barely coherent bumbling troll and is dangerous in his own way, but Betsy and her brother Erik Prince are the absolute definition of evil.

I'd boycott Amway, except I've never bought anything from Amway or participated in their pyramid scheme. Sorry, their "technically legal multilevel marketing company".

And Erik is literally a warlord running a shady mercenary company, so there's that.

Seth wrote:

Betsy DeVos could have spent her sixties making life miserable for the people of Ada, Michigan -- a small town the Devoses basically invented when Grand Rapids got too liberal for them.

Instead she spent it taking money away from starving kids and disabled kids. What a truly evil woman. Trump is a barely coherent bumbling troll and is dangerous in his own way, but Betsy and her brother Erik Prince are the absolute definition of evil.

For what it’s worth I think she has only been attempting to take money away from kids, not succeeding. Even the Republicans ignored her suggested budgets and increased funding instead.

absurddoctor wrote:
Seth wrote:

Betsy DeVos could have spent her sixties making life miserable for the people of Ada, Michigan -- a small town the Devoses basically invented when Grand Rapids got too liberal for them.

Instead she spent it taking money away from starving kids and disabled kids. What a truly evil woman. Trump is a barely coherent bumbling troll and is dangerous in his own way, but Betsy and her brother Erik Prince are the absolute definition of evil.

For what it’s worth I think she has only been attempting to take money away from kids, not succeeding. Even the Republicans ignored her suggested budgets and increased funding instead.

There are times that I truly hope that Dante really did see hell as he wrote it and this woman and her family end up there, traitors against humanity are not well taken care of.

Trump complains to senators that Puerto Rico is getting too much hurricane relief funding

WaPo wrote:

...Trump’s decision to use the occasion to send a message about funding for Puerto Rico underscores his continuing push to limit aid to the island.

In the past, Trump has asked advisers how to reduce money for Puerto Rico and signaled that he won’t support any more aid beyond food stamp funds. At the lunch Tuesday, Trump rattled off the amount of aid that had been designated for other disaster-hit states and compared it with the amount allocated for Puerto Rico following the 2017 hurricane, which he said was too high, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private meeting.

Trump noted to GOP senators that Texas — also battered by a spate of hurricanes — was awarded $29 billion in aid, while South Carolina got $1.5 billion to recover from storms. Trump then questioned why Puerto Rico was getting $91 billion, according to two people familiar with his comments, indicating that this was too much compared with compensation for states on the mainland.

Trump remarked that one could buy Puerto Rico four times over for $91 billion, according to people familiar with his comments.

But it’s unclear where Trump got the figure for Puerto Rico aid. It is similar to estimates of the amount of damage as opposed to what Congress has approved for relief. One congressional official said it’s difficult to quantify how much aid the island received because of how the money is disbursed.

Democrats have criticized the president’s reluctance to provide more money to help the island recover. On Tuesday, following recent reports about Trump’s opposition to providing additional aid, it was announced that the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development would review whether the White House has interfered with hurricane relief funding approved for Puerto Rico as part of a broader examination of the agency’s administration of disaster grants.

Congress has appropriated nearly $20 billion in HUD relief funds for Puerto Rico — which accounts for one type of federal aid that states ravaged by natural disasters can get. Of that pot of money, $1.5 billion has been approved for spending.

I wonder which Fox News anchor put it in Trump's head that Puerto Rico was getting $91 billion...

Barbara Bush no longer considered herself a Republican after Trump became President, book says

"After Trump's rise, she saw it as a party she could not continue to support, a party she no longer recognized -- even as one of her grandsons, George P. Bush, was on the ballot as a Republican running for re-election as Texas land commissioner," author Susan Page wrote in an excerpt adapted from her new book, "The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty."

Cant say I disagree. She isn't a republican based on what they believe now. Hell, I can't think of a republican president who would still be.

Trump administration reportedly approves secret nuclear power tech sales to Saudi Arabia

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has approved six secret authorizations by companies to sell nuclear power technology and assistance to Saudi Arabia, according to a copy of a document seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

The Trump administration has quietly pursued a wider deal on sharing U.S. nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia, which aims to build at least two nuclear power plants. Several countries including the United States, South Korea and Russia are in competition for that deal, and the winners are expected to be announced later this year by Saudi Arabia.

From Reddit comments -

Hey remember how a while ago a bunch of people crashed some planes into the World Trade Center? What country were 15 of the 19 of the hijackers citizens of again?
Saudi Arabia murdered and dismembered a journalist for The Washington Post so the Trump administration rewards them with nuclear power tech.

A deal approved by Rick Perry: the man who wanted to abolish the Department of Energy (but couldn't remember it's name) and the man who just two short years ago had no f*cking clue what the Department of Energy did or that a major focus of the agency was overseeing both nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.

I'm sure we won't collectively regret this moronic decision in a decade or two when the first dirty bomb is detonated by a group the Saudis either radicalized via its madrassas or directly funded (or both).

Did we have collective regret over Afghanistan and our role in building the Taliban to fight the Soviets? Americans don't do regret. We are a forward thinking people.

Extreme sarcasm spoilered

Spoiler:

Now eat your f*cking Freedom Fries and shut up. :)

farley3k wrote:

Did we have collective regret over Afghanistan and our role in building the Taliban to fight the Soviets? Americans don't do regret. We are a forward thinking people.

Extreme sarcasm spoilered

Spoiler:

Now eat your f*cking Freedom Fries and shut up. :)

Spoiler:

Man, it burns me that the French were right in 2003. I hate that!

I mean, it's okay that we were wrong and dumb; that happens. But I can't buy into that if the French were also right. To have history prove the French correct in the face of our stupidity?? Man, that's embarrassing.

Can we call this Uranium Two?

#UraniumToo

Jonman wrote:

Can we call this Uranium Two?

Don't you mean Two Uranium?

bekkilyn wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Can we call this Uranium Two?

Don't you mean Two Uranium?

Nuclear Bugaloo?

So, real talk.

The rhetoric is getting worse. The right's response to this administration flagrantly breaking laws and norms is essentially threaten violence on the people holding them accountable.

How does this administration end without violence?

With President Pence in 2024.

A brief aside, because this is only tangentially related: my 9-year-old son recently brought home an art project in which he created a comic book-style series of story panels to describe an original superhero tale. His superhero story centered around a friendly narwhal, who is called into action to defeat...Donald Trump. Who has nukes and nobody likes. Even better, his "artwork" was posted online to the elementary school's art display website.

My wife has decided that maybe she needs to tone down the anti-Trump rants around the house.

Boudreaux wrote:

A brief aside, because this is only tangentially related: my 9-year-old son recently brought home an art project in which he created a comic book-style series of story panels to describe an original superhero tale. His superhero story centered around a friendly narwhal, who is called into action to defeat...Donald Trump. Who has nukes and nobody likes. Even better, his "artwork" was posted online to the elementary school's art display website.

My wife has decided that maybe she needs to tone down the anti-Trump rants around the house.

I would kickstart a publication of this work so hard I'd become light-headed.

Trump is now threatening to completely close the southern border over illegal immigration. I cannot imagine the sh*tshow that would happen if we closed the border with Mexico. So much flows both ways over the border every day.

It would certainly collapse the economy of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and other border states.
Plus, how does he expect to enforce that? The draft? Where is a boutique doctor when you need one?

Trump adds a deadline on his threat to close the border

President Donald Trump on Friday repeated his threat to close down the border between the United States and Mexico, but this time he noted he would act next week if Mexico doesn't step up.

"If Mexico doesn't immediately stop ALL illegal immigration coming into the United States throug (sic) our Southern Border, I will be CLOSING the Border, or large sections of the Border, next week," he tweeted.

WTF?

I mean, he could easily close large sections of the border, because isn't like a third of it desert/mountain/rivers that don't have actual crossing points anyways? He may just do that and declare victory again.

trichy wrote:
Boudreaux wrote:

A brief aside, because this is only tangentially related: my 9-year-old son recently brought home an art project in which he created a comic book-style series of story panels to describe an original superhero tale. His superhero story centered around a friendly narwhal, who is called into action to defeat...Donald Trump. Who has nukes and nobody likes. Even better, his "artwork" was posted online to the elementary school's art display website.

My wife has decided that maybe she needs to tone down the anti-Trump rants around the house.

I would kickstart a publication of this work so hard I'd become light-headed.

What if he publishes on the Epic storefront?

SallyNasty wrote:

What if he publishes on the Epic storefront?

Woah, woah, woah. I don't think this section of the forum is the appropriate place for something so volatile and controversial.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

What if he publishes on the Epic storefront?

Woah, woah, woah. I don't think this section of the forum is the appropriate place for something so volatile and controversial.

LOL

Now, now, we can't really say anything about it until we know where each of the candidates stand on the issue.

oilypenguin wrote:

So, real talk.

The rhetoric is getting worse. The right's response to this administration flagrantly breaking laws and norms is essentially threaten violence on the people holding them accountable.

How does this administration end without violence?

It does not.

If Trump loses in 2020, I am absolutely certain we will see violent revolts from the right.

If trump wins in 2020, i fully believe the left is duty bound by their morality to violently revolt. If we don’t, then we are approving of every single thing this administration has done.