[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.

JC wrote:

Guess who couldn't be bothered to show up for a climate discussion at the G7....

This picture beautifully sums up the entire situation with Trump regardless of the discussion/event

IMAGE(https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--IIExB6FL--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/ukgzlwncwzsybrizspol.jpg)

Yeah, even when he's present, he's not really "present."

I don't even have the energy to post links about all this stuff any more. Trump says the media is destroying free press, that all of the other world leaders at the G7 acknowledged how great the US economy is doing and wondered why the American press lies about it all the time and cheers for the US to fail, that China has called him begging for him to come back to the negotiation table, he keeps bugging the G7 about allowing Russia back into the group, and then states he wants the US to host the G7 next year at a Trump resort. And all that's in addition to the nuking hurricanes and demanding US business stop dealing with China. How is anyone, anywhere, pretending this is all normal? There's a lunatic in charge of the United States and over half the country is acting like it's business as usual.

Kehama wrote:

I don't even have the energy to post links about all this stuff any more. Trump says the media is destroying free press, that all of the other world leaders at the G7 acknowledged how great the US economy is doing and wondered why the American press lies about it all the time and cheers for the US to fail, that China has called him begging for him to come back to the negotiation table, he keeps bugging the G7 about allowing Russia back into the group, and then states he wants the US to host the G7 next year at a Trump resort. And all that's in addition to the nuking hurricanes and demanding US business stop dealing with China. How is anyone, anywhere, pretending this is all normal? There's a lunatic in charge of the United States and over half the country is acting like it's business as usual.

IMAGE(https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/12/18/article-2525602-1A2B2A3600000578-553_634x408.jpg)

Kehama wrote:

I don't even have the energy to post links about all this stuff any more. Trump says the media is destroying free press, that all of the other world leaders at the G7 acknowledged how great the US economy is doing and wondered why the American press lies about it all the time and cheers for the US to fail, that China has called him begging for him to come back to the negotiation table, he keeps bugging the G7 about allowing Russia back into the group, and then states he wants the US to host the G7 next year at a Trump resort. And all that's in addition to the nuking hurricanes and demanding US business stop dealing with China. How is anyone, anywhere, pretending this is all normal? There's a lunatic in charge of the United States and over half the country is acting like it's business as usual.

To be fair, look at the media. They have been utterly complicit in enabling and normalizing Trump. Two damn police officers died trying to cross some train tracks here in Chicago last year and they spent weeks and untold hours telling and retelling every part of that story. They gave coverage to every last damn bit of it up to and past the funerals. But Trump? Just blurbs here and there saying what he is doing without any critical coverage. Just giving him free air time to pollute the waters of political discourse. Any time there is any extended coverage of him, it is like he is any other sort of president we've had. It's sickening.

I don't like saying it, but corporate media is our enemy. They want Trump. They love Trump. Trump gives them everything they could ever hope for.

Looks like we're going to be deporting extremely sick people now...

WBUR wrote:

Dismaying immigrants and advocates, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) sent out letters saying the agency will no longer consider most deferrals of deportation for people with serious medical conditions, documents show.

The agency is now saying those decisions will be made by another agency: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

...

The small program known as "medical deferred action" allows people to remain in the U.S. for two-year periods if they can prove extreme medical need. Many of the people affected by the policy change came to the U.S. through a visa or other permitted status and are requesting to stay beyond those terms to receive medical treatment.

So we've officially moved on to the medical neglect part of the genocide scale. hooray.

FFS....it’s just blatant....

If I were to believe in heaven and hell, I would hope there is a special place for Barr and the rest of them.

Attorney General William Barr planning private holiday party at Trump's DC hotel

As Tropical Storm Dorian is set to hit Puerto Rico and Florida, the Trump administration announced yesterday that they're stealing $271 million from the Department of Homeland Security to pay for immigration detention space and temporary hearing locations for asylum-seekers who have been forced to wait in Mexico.

$155 million will come from FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund and $116 million will come from the Coast Guard's operations budget.

The Trump administration notified Congress that it was moving the funds--not asked them--because it feels it has the authority to repurpose funds. Congress specifically did not allocate money for these items in the emergency funding bill it passed back in June.

Typical Trump - doesn't even bother to read the GOP playbook. He's supposed to be blaming it on the gays.

Jonman wrote:

Typical Trump - doesn't even bother to read the GOP playbook. He's supposed to be blaming it on the gays.

Or Obama, Clinton, Soros, or illegals... it just goes on and on.

Um how come no one is talking about the fact that Deutsche Bank supposedly has loan documents that are co-signed by Russian oligarchs and are believed to be loans to Trump? And that they also have trump's tax returns... (further fueling that speculation)

It seemed more credible that pure speculation though it was reported on last night's the Last Word on MSNBC.

edit: well it turns out it has not been corroborated at all, was outside of protocol and it was "thinly sourced"...

fangblackbone wrote:

Um how come no one is talking about the fact that Deutsche Bank supposedly has loan documents that are co-signed by Russian oligarchs and are believed to be loans to Trump? And that they also have trump's tax returns... (further fueling that speculation)

It seemed more credible that pure speculation though it was reported on last night's the Last Word on MSNBC.

O'Donnell's retracted it today. He ran it with inadequate sourcing.

Sloppy.

Even though we have already blown out the evil scale...

US troop's children born overseas will no longer get automatic citizenship.

IMAGE(https://media0.giphy.com/media/5MGFEJS7FIxK8/giphy.gif)

Nimcosi wrote:

Even though we have already blown out the evil scale...

US troop's children born overseas will no longer get automatic citizenship.

I see this as furthering the goal of regressing US society back to the "good old days" when women stayed at home and had babies.

Even for the Trump administration, this is a baffling move. The only thing this does is hurt people serving in the military.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Even for the Trump administration, this is a baffling move. The only thing this does is hurt people serving in the military.

Because it's a step towards ending birthright citizenship, which is their ultimate goal.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Even for the Trump administration, this is a baffling move. The only thing this does is hurt people serving in the military.

Guess they could walk over the the US embassy and deliver right there on embassy grounds. That’s US border space...

I'm guessing that it's targeted at non-citizens in the service, so if they have a child while stationed overseas that child is not a citizen. They can still apply for citizenship, but it's no longer automatic. Seems needlessly cruel, but that's no longer surprising.

And application will be a breeze if the applicant is white.

Wonder how much paperwork and exorbitant fees will be in place for this ridiculous process?

Tangentially related: A retired Army officer is fighting to save his adopted daughter from deportation

The couple brought Hyebin to the U.S. in 2012, and Schreiber was deployed to Afghanistan the next year. According to The Kansas City Star, an adoption attorney advised Schreiber that the couple wouldn't face any obstacles to finalizing Hyebin's adoption and naturalization if they waited until he returned from his deployment.

But after returning from Afghanistan, he found that wasn't the case: the cutoff for a foreign-born adopted child to receive citizenship under the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is 16 years old. Hyebin had turned 17 while he was deployed.

qaraq wrote:

I'm guessing that it's targeted at non-citizens in the service, so if they have a child while stationed overseas that child is not a citizen. They can still apply for citizenship, but it's no longer automatic. Seems needlessly cruel, but that's no longer surprising.

Trumps way of supporting our troops and thanking them for their service. It’s a race to the absolute bottom.

fangblackbone wrote:

edit: well it turns out it has not been corroborated at all, was outside of protocol and it was "thinly sourced"...

So it was something the President said?

BlackSheep wrote:
qaraq wrote:

I'm guessing that it's targeted at non-citizens in the service, so if they have a child while stationed overseas that child is not a citizen. They can still apply for citizenship, but it's no longer automatic. Seems needlessly cruel, but that's no longer surprising.

Trumps way of supporting our troops and thanking them for their service. It’s a race to the absolute bottom.

And yet, they'll still overwhelmingly vote for him.

The Trump administration is reversing an Obama-era rule that required oil and gas companies to install controls that limited the release of methane at well heads and transmission equipment.

The oil and gas industry is responsible for about 31% of methane emissions in the US, though that percentage is likely much higher greater based on a paper published last year that found that the EPA was undercounting the industry's methane emissions by about 60% (or about 13 million tons).

Methane is an extremely powerful greenhouse gas, one that's 80 times as effective as CO2 in capturing heat.

The elimination of the rule is expected to save oil and gas companies between $17 and $19 million a year. The industry made $28 billion in profit last year.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

And yet, they'll still overwhelmingly vote for him.

I was always confused by that attitude when I was in. Voting for people who would vote to send you to a war, any war, in a heartbeat but would instantly vote down anything that might spend money to help with service members dealing with anything from debilitating medical issues to even finding a job once they got out seemed counter intuitive to me.

Al wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:

And yet, they'll still overwhelmingly vote for him.

I was always confused by that attitude when I was in. Voting for people who would vote to send you to a war, any war, in a heartbeat but would instantly vote down anything that might spend money to help with service members dealing with anything from debilitating medical issues to even finding a job once they got out seemed counter intuitive to me.

I think the mindset is they arn't voting against helping you, you are hardworking and will be made an exception and helped. They are voting against helping those people who are lazy and don't deserve help.

The OIG has released its investigation into former FBI director James Comey.

The bottom line is that he broke FBI policies... after being fired. And Comey broke no law because the memo he leaked to the NYTimes contained no classified information.

Republicans are trying to use the report to retroactively justify Comey's firing, despite the fact that the "violations" didn't happen until after Trump fired him over the Russia investigation.