[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.

ranalin wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

Turns out that we have no way to stop blatant corruption and graft.

Politico: Appeals court tosses emoluments suit against Trump

A federal appeals court panel has unanimously thrown out a lawsuit accusing President Donald Trump of violating the Constitution by continuing to do business with foreign and state governments while serving as president.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia — who joined together to file the suit against Trump in 2017 — lacked legal standing to object to his alleged violations of the Constitution’s clauses prohibiting receipt of so-called “emoluments” while in office.

wtf?

I was hoping this would be the barb that would stick... how does it lack legal standing?

There's more than one emoluments lawsuit. This one was filed by two states. Another one was filed by members of congress and is still ongoing.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
ranalin wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

Turns out that we have no way to stop blatant corruption and graft.

Politico: Appeals court tosses emoluments suit against Trump

A federal appeals court panel has unanimously thrown out a lawsuit accusing President Donald Trump of violating the Constitution by continuing to do business with foreign and state governments while serving as president.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia — who joined together to file the suit against Trump in 2017 — lacked legal standing to object to his alleged violations of the Constitution’s clauses prohibiting receipt of so-called “emoluments” while in office.

wtf?

I was hoping this would be the barb that would stick... how does it lack legal standing?

There's more than one emoluments lawsuit. This one was filed by two states. Another one was filed by members of congress and is still ongoing.

They were essentially told that they were unable to show any actual harm was done. And since there was no direct evidence of corruption, just the incredible appearance of it, the court ruled no standing.

The same thing happened in a lot in the NSA surveillance cases. Congress ordered the NSA to violate any plain reading of the 4th Amendment. But noone bringing a suit could actually show any evidence that they were harmed in anyway by NSA monitoring.

Acosta is out

President Trump announces Labor Secretary Acosta has resigned

President Trump has announced that Labor Secretary Acosta has resigned.

Standing on the South Lawn with Trump ahead of the President's departure to Wisconsin, Labor Secretary Acosta said he “called the President this morning thought right thing was to step aside.”

His resignation is effective one week from today.

I wouldn't be surprised if the reason Acosta's gone is that in Trump's eye he didn't scream loud enough or blame Democrats for Epstein during his presser the other day.

Absolutely incredible the amount of turnover. And unfilled positions. Big surprise Trump is actually bad at running a business.

Stele wrote:

Absolutely incredible the amount of turnover. And unfilled positions. Big surprise Trump is actually bad at running a business.

Drain the swamp turned out to mean, fill wetlands with toxic waste, remove some of the toxic waste, blame the wetlands for being there, and then claim great success when the remaining toxic waste flows further downstream.

AUs_TBirD wrote:

So he's gone by this time next week, right?

You called it. Came just a little early.

A planned visit...

McAllen, Texas (CNN)Vice President Mike Pence traveled to the US-Mexico border Friday to witness the conditions facing migrant adults and children in Customs and Border Protection custody.

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge..

"The Vice President's office specifically instructed CBP to not clean up or sanitize the facility beyond what is routine so the American people could see how serious the crisis at our border is (overcrowding, lack of resources, beds)," an administration official said in an email, noting that there were Secret Service concerns over Pence entering the sally port, but the Vice President's office pushed for press access.
Joined by a group of reporters, Senate Republicans and acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, Pence visited two facilities in the Rio Grande Valley: the Donna Processing Facility, temporarily housing families, and the McAllen Border Patrol Station, housing single adults who have been found crossing into the United States illegally.
In Donna, Pence saw oversized, air-conditioned facilities, with children and their parents lying on cots, watching animated movies and eating snacks.
In McAllen, it was a much different scene: Pence toured a swelteringly hot room called a sally port with hundreds of men, a strong smell of sweat and overcrowding so extreme there was no room for cots, the migrants left to sleep on concrete beneath mylar blankets.

Someone give this guy a mirror for him and his boss

Asked by CNN whether the conditions for the detained single adult immigrants were acceptable, Pence said no.
"No, it's not. That's the reason why we demanded that Congress provide $4.6 billion in additional support to Customs and Border Protection," the vice president said in an interview following both tours and a roundtable with Border Patrol officials. "The McAllen station, where our cells are overflowing ... ought to be a very clear message to every American that the time for action is now and the time for Congress to act to end the flow of families that are coming north from Central America to our border is now."

Or you could just, like, let them go. Which is what we used to do. Worked fine. None of the problems with that system are solved by the current situation.

Rat Boy wrote:

I wouldn't be surprised if the reason Acosta's gone is that in Trump's eye he didn't scream loud enough or blame Democrats for Epstein during his presser the other day.

The problem with Acosta leaving is that we'll likely get someone worse, since he's allegedly been slow to roll back business regulations.

Still, my position with all Epstein-related corruption is "Let justice be done though the heavens fall": I don't want to live in a society where I profit in any way from child rapists.
NYT: Jeffrey Epstein Registered as a Sex Offender in 2 States. In New Mexico, He Didn’t Have To.
NYT: Jeffrey Epstein Taught at Dalton. His Behavior Was Noticed. Some students at the esteemed Manhattan prep school recall that Mr. Epstein, now charged with sex trafficking, was willing to violate norms in his encounters with girls.
Bloomberg: The Mystery Surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s Private Island
NBC: Charities say they never got the donations Jeffrey Epstein claims he made

I suppose I'm hopeful that at least one monster will face justice from this. This has been a year that's been short on wins for the vulnerable innocent.

Trust Pence to blame the conditions not on the actual problem but the Democrats not giving them monies to deny legal asylum seekers.

This could be Trumps most transparent and honest tweet ever.

Our president is tweeting that the freshman democrat congresswomen should all just go back to where they came from

President Twit wrote:

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly......

....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how....

....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

Note that the congresswomen that he's referring to are all US citizens, and were all born in the US. Why would he assume they weren't, I wonder? It's repugnant, and I don't see how anyone could in good faith argue that he isn't outright being racist here.

Not to mention sexist but hey, it is okay to be overtly sexist now. It is the christian thing to do.

They're trying to fix the "broken crime-infested places they came from", but Pelosi won't let them impeach Trump...

Gremlin wrote:

They're trying to fix the "broken crime-infested places they came from", but Pelosi won't let them impeach Trump...

What do we do when the Senate doesn't convict him and Trump gets to shout everyday until election day that he's been proven innocent of any and all wrongdoing?

Not to mention what do we do about all the Democratic voters who'll get frustrated and disenchanted about the failed impeachment and probably pull another 2016 and just not vote because "the system's rigged."

Tscott wrote:

This could be Trumps most transparent and honest tweet ever.

Our president is tweeting that the freshman democrat congresswomen should all just go back to where they came from

President Twit wrote:

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly......

....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how....

....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

Note that the congresswomen that he's referring to are all US citizens, and were all born in the US. Why would he assume they weren't, I wonder? It's repugnant, and I don't see how anyone could in good faith argue that he isn't outright being racist here.

It’s beside the point, but isn’t Ilhan from Somalia and emigrated here as a child? She’s absolutely still allowed to serve as in congress and has as much right as anyone to serve. You have to be a US citizen to serve anyway and, despite populist belief, most immigrants absolutely work twice as hard to integrate - especially the children who attend public schools.

At the end of the day, it’s reprehensible and he’s nothing but a dog whistle. Twitter could totally shut this entire farce of a presidency down if they just closed his account.

OG_slinger wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

They're trying to fix the "broken crime-infested places they came from", but Pelosi won't let them impeach Trump...

What do we do when the Senate doesn't convict him and Trump gets to shout everyday until election day that he's been proven innocent of any and all wrongdoing?

Not to mention what do we do about all the Democratic voters who'll get frustrated and disenchanted about the failed impeachment and probably pull another 2016 and just not vote because "the system's rigged."

Man, I get that - but sometimes you have to be willing to choose a hill to die on - and if that’s Capital Hill, so much the better. Drag out everything for everyone to see and stop playing this ‘spin show’ in the media. Put everything in official record, including the votes of those Republicans that choose to allow this travesty of a president because he’s bought them by offering their wives a position in the cabinet, tax breaks and environmental and business regulation rollbacks for their friends, and the fear of getting called out.

People still don’t understand what’s in the Mueller Report. People are ignorant until the long bony claw actually Touches their everyday lives and so they only tangentially hear of this sh*t - and usually through a prism of their choosing. In Congress, it will be a prism that is not so easily ignored, even if you’re going to ‘own the libs.’

BlackSheep wrote:

It’s beside the point, but isn’t Ilhan from Somalia and emigrated here as a child? She’s absolutely still allowed to serve as in congress and has as much right as anyone to serve. You have to be a US citizen to serve anyway and, despite populist belief, most immigrants absolutely work twice as hard to integrate - especially the children who attend public schools.

At the end of the day, it’s reprehensible and he’s nothing but a dog whistle. Twitter could totally shut this entire farce of a presidency down if they just closed his account.

Sorry. I should have said most of them were born in the US. I saw a number of tweets listing where a number of the congresswomen were born- I didn’t take into account they weren’t listing all.

Not that it makes a bit of difference, but to be factually correct.

I mean the tweets are racist regardless of where they were born. They're just incompetent on top of it.

BlackSheep wrote:

Man, I get that - but sometimes you have to be willing to choose a hill to die on - and if that’s Capital Hill, so much the better. Drag out everything for everyone to see and stop playing this ‘spin show’ in the media. Put everything in official record, including the votes of those Republicans that choose to allow this travesty of a president because he’s bought them by offering their wives a position in the cabinet, tax breaks and environmental and business regulation rollbacks for their friends, and the fear of getting called out.

People still don’t understand what’s in the Mueller Report. People are ignorant until the long bony claw actually Touches their everyday lives and so they only tangentially hear of this sh*t - and usually through a prism of their choosing. In Congress, it will be a prism that is not so easily ignored, even if you’re going to ‘own the libs.’

I've beaten it until it's a dead horse, but: my primary theory as to what can change the country is that the most people who aren't paying attention are following the just world fallacy: No one is impeaching Trump, therefore he must not be guilty.

Not to mention that Trump crowing about not getting convicted in the Senate isn't going to change no matter what the House does, so they might as well go ahead and impeach him.

(Likewise, all those people locked up in concentration camps must have done something to deserve it. Never mind that the way we mostly did it before recently was to let them go and politely ask them to show up for their court date--and they did show up, in overwhelming numbers. It was a reliable system. And cheaper too.)

That, and I'd rather our politicians go down fighting. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, and they're not taking nearly as many as they could me.

I wrote to my Representative a while back and got a letter talking about all of the House's legislative accomplishments. You know, the ones that also stand no chance of getting past the Senate. If they're going to keep working on things that won't pass the Senate anyway, they might as well spend their time on investigations and impeachment.

Gremlin wrote:

I mean the tweets are racist regardless of where they were born. They're just incompetent on top of it.

BlackSheep wrote:

Man, I get that - but sometimes you have to be willing to choose a hill to die on - and if that’s Capital Hill, so much the better. Drag out everything for everyone to see and stop playing this ‘spin show’ in the media. Put everything in official record, including the votes of those Republicans that choose to allow this travesty of a president because he’s bought them by offering their wives a position in the cabinet, tax breaks and environmental and business regulation rollbacks for their friends, and the fear of getting called out.

People still don’t understand what’s in the Mueller Report. People are ignorant until the long bony claw actually Touches their everyday lives and so they only tangentially hear of this sh*t - and usually through a prism of their choosing. In Congress, it will be a prism that is not so easily ignored, even if you’re going to ‘own the libs.’

I've beaten it until it's a dead horse, but: my primary theory as to what can change the country is that the most people who aren't paying attention are following the just world fallacy: No one is impeaching Trump, therefore he must not be guilty.

Not to mention that Trump crowing about not getting convicted in the Senate isn't going to change no matter what the House does, so they might as well go ahead and impeach him.

(Likewise, all those people locked up in concentration camps must have done something to deserve it. Never mind that the way we mostly did it before recently was to let them go and politely ask them to show up for their court date--and they did show up, in overwhelming numbers. It was a reliable system. And cheaper too.)

That, and I'd rather our politicians go down fighting. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, and they're not taking nearly as many as they could me.

I wrote to my Representative a while back and got a letter talking about all of the House's legislative accomplishments. You know, the ones that also stand no chance of getting past the Senate. If they're going to keep working on things that won't pass the Senate anyway, they might as well spend their time on investigations and impeachment.

And you never really know the unlikely allies you might find - the other Justin Amashes, or watching a still politically motivated Paul Ryan or others begin chipping away at the cancer they’ve allowed to grow that will absolutely kill the patient, but in the meantime, like some super villain, also confers them power unlike they’ve ever had before. And there might be just enough pushback that even if he doesn’t get convicted isn’t the Senate, what CUNY the Republican Party not vote lockstep on something is something I’d also consider a big win.

If impeachment proceedings drag every named person in the Mueller report, and every woman he harassed or cheated on his wives with in front of a camera to publicly state on camera what happened, public sentiment will really turn, and so will some Senators with it. Same as Nixon.

Also, we'd have to know the number of voters turned off by impeaching vs the number turned off by not impeaching to make that call, but we can't really know now because the course of the hearings will change both of those numbers.

Mixolyde wrote:

but we can't really know now because the course of the hearings will change both of those numbers.

Just like my blood pressure!

As it stands, he is already crowing that the mueller report clears him. It would be no different with the senate. I’d rather have at least one party that will do what is necessary and required regardless of the “politics”. Even then, no one knows how it will actually turn out. We have very little data on that. I’m not gonna vote for a member of the GOP but if the Democratic Party won’t do anything, then what’s the difference.

obirano wrote:

As it stands, he is already crowing that the mueller report clears him. It would be no different with the senate. I’d rather have at least one party that will do what is necessary and required regardless of the “politics”. Even then, no one knows how it will actually turn out. We have very little data on that. I’m not gonna vote for a member of the GOP but if the Democratic Party won’t do anything, then what’s the difference.

This. I already called my congresswoman a few months ago that unless she pushed for impeachment I was just going to vote for her opponent.

Eventually she pushed for impeachment, but I may have to change that to unless impeachment investigations begin I may as well not vote for her.

Most people don't even understand that impeachment is a process, not an end result. They'll see Trump Impeached and have to reckon with some major shock. It still won't go well of course, they'll decide the deep state has risen or some sh*t, but they'll have to come out of the idea that he's completely in charge and 'winning' at everything.

Seriously?

Washington (CNN)Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of President Donald Trump's strongest allies on Capitol Hill, declined on Monday to condemn the President over his racist tweets against several minority members of Congress, instead calling them a "bunch of communists."
Graham's comments, which were later tweeted out by Trump, are the latest example of congressional Republican alignment with Trump in the face of fierce controversy.
"Well, we all know that (New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) and this crowd are a bunch of communists, they hate Israel, they hate our own country," Graham said during an appearance on "Fox and Friends." "They're calling the guards along our border, the border patrol agents, 'concentration camp guards.' They accuse people who support Israel of doing it for the Benjamins. They're anti-Semitic. They're anti-America."
Shortly after Graham made the comments, Trump shared them in a tweet, writing, "Need I say more?"

Trump is doubling down on asking people to leave the country right now on TV.

Lindsey Graham wrote:

doing it for the Benjamins

What year is it?

Donald Trump's latest tweets cast him as racist in chief: Today's talker
*from today's duh files. I you just noticed he is a racist you have been ignoring him for the past two years.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Lindsey Graham wrote:

doing it for the Benjamins

What year is it?

Well for Graham cracker, it’s about 1955.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Lindsey Graham wrote:

doing it for the Benjamins

What year is it?

Reference here.