[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's tweeted more than 100 times today so far, including 9 when his schedule said he was receiving a national security briefing.

He's pretty upset about a teenager winning an award

Daily Beast: Ex-Fox Reporter Says Trump Asked Her to Visit His Office for a ‘Kiss’

Courtney Friel, who occasionally worked on Trump’s favorite morning show Fox & Friends, made the allegations in her memoir Tonight At 10: Kicking Booze and Breaking News. According to New York Daily News, the journalist claims Trump told her she was “the hottest one at Fox News” when he called her after she expressed an interest in working on his Miss USA beauty pageant. Friel claimed Trump opened the call by asking her about her career, but, as she recounts in the book: “Then, out of nowhere, he said: ‘You should come up to my office sometime, so we can kiss.’” The journalist said that she was was “shocked” by Trump’s invitation and wrote: “‘Donald,’ I responded, ‘I believe we’re both married.’ I quickly ended the call.” Friel went on: “It infuriated me that he would call all the women who shared stories of his bold advances liars. I totally believe them,” she states in the book. “At least now I can joke that I could have banged the President—but I passed.” The White House did not immediately return The Daily Beast’s request for comment on her claim.
“At least now I can joke that I could have banged the President—but I passed.”

See? Every cloud has a silver lining. Even the Trump administration!

Woman who wanted to work with face-eating leopard surprised by offer to have face eaten.

The Other Reason Republicans Won’t Cross Trump

Risky as it is for Republicans to buck Trump politically, Trump has built personal ties with key members of Congress that have cemented their loyalty. Read Trump’s Twitter feed or listen to his rallies, and he comes off as an unhappy man, filled with grievances and self-obsessed. But that scabrous persona isn’t what he necessarily shows Republican lawmakers, nor is it what they care to see. “Trump has been extremely good at taking care of the parochial interests of members of Congress, and they appreciate that,” former Republican Representative David Jolly of Florida told me, adding that he’s discussed the president with his former colleagues. “I talked to one member who said, I wish he wouldn’t do these things, but privately, he’s a really nice guy and he’s really good to me.”
“He’s down-to-earth, easygoing, friendly,” [Representative Peter King of New York] told me of his interactions with the president. “He can be pretty profane about this guy or that. I have to remind myself that I’m with the president of the United States, but I feel like I’m back on the street corner in Queens.” When he’s in Trump’s company, he added, it’s like being with “a stand-up comic and raconteur.”
Perhaps Trump’s most important relationship on Capitol Hill is with McConnell. There isn’t much warmth between them—Trump scorned McConnell’s judgment in 2017—but the collaboration has proved mutually valuable. He’s focused on one of the senator’s pet projects: stocking the federal courts with conservative judges. And Trump appointed McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, as his transportation secretary, and in an administration marked by endless churn, she’s held the job from the beginning.

emphases mine--I keep forgetting that part. Trump *does* make great deals--if your name is Trump. Unless your name is also Eric or the other one from the other marriage I forget but he probably does too.

He is running the government just like the mafia used to and how "good ol business (white men) used to". Scratch my back and maybe I won't kill you.

Trump on Iraq voting to expel US military

Trump said the U.S. wouldn’t leave without being paid for its military investments in Iraq over the years — then said if the troops do have to withdraw, he would hit Baghdad with economic penalties.

“We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame,” he said. “If there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq.”

He added: “We’re not leaving until they pay us back for it.”

No you idiot, that's not how this works.

Not even going to get started on his despicable comments about attacking cultural sites...

Trump first raised the prospect of targeting Iranian cultural sites Saturday in a tweet. Speaking with reporters Sunday as he flew back to Washington from his holiday stay in Florida, he doubled down, despite international prohibitions.

“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way,” Trump said.

Isn't declaring the intent of doing unlawful acts unlawful?

Not for Trump according to his party...

He is kinda saying bomb on an airplane

Nothing he does is functionally illegal if Senate Republicans don’t stop him.

The president also literally gets off on committing war crimes by proxy and has numerous times raged at attempts to bring war criminals to justice.

JC wrote:

Trump on Iraq voting to expel US military

Trump said the U.S. wouldn’t leave without being paid for its military investments in Iraq over the years — then said if the troops do have to withdraw, he would hit Baghdad with economic penalties.

“We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame,” he said. “If there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq.”

He added: “We’re not leaving until they pay us back for it.”

No you idiot, that's not how this works.

The last Republican president lied about how the (illegal) invasion of Iraq would pay for itself (and only last a few months) so it makes perfect sense that 17 years later the current Republican president is saying that we won't leave until Iraq pays us for invading and occupying it.

And speaking of Trump and transparency and honesty plane watchers were abuzz over the weekend when a private jet used by German Gref, the CEO of the Russian bank Sberbank, landed in Ft. Lauderdale, FL at 2:30 AM Saturday morning. Ft. Lauderdale International Airport is about an hour's drive from both Mar-a-Lago and the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach which was where Trump spent the weekend.

Sberbank and Trump officially crossed paths in 2010 when Sberbank guaranteed a Deutsche Bank loan to Trump. Trump needed the money because he was defaulting on a $640 million loan Deutsche Bank had given him in 2005.

Sberbank is considered a financial arm of the Kremlin and has been involved in multiple money laundering schemes. The bank was also sanctioned by the state department in 2018 for its investments in Russia-occupied Crimea.

Can't get any more transparent than that...

fangblackbone wrote:

Can't get any more transparent than that...

Not that it matters.

From a forum over in Europe.

Someone has made list of sh*t trump has done. It seems the US system is f*cked, way worse than UK

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/co...

Mnuchin seeks delay of proposed disclosure of Secret Service spending on presidential travel until after election

WaPo wrote:

The Trump administration is seeking to delay a Democratic effort to require the Secret Service to disclose how much it spends protecting President Trump and his family when they travel — until after the 2020 election, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The issue has emerged as a sticking point in recent weeks as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and key senators have been negotiating draft legislation to move the Secret Service back to his department, its historic home.

Mnuchin has balked at Democratic demands that the bill require the Secret Service to disclose the costs related to the travel of the president and his adult children within 120 days after it is passed, according to people with knowledge of the talks. Mnuchin has agreed to Democrats’ push for a requirement that the Secret Service report its travel expenses but wants such disclosures to begin after the election.

Even better, have a lifetime maximum... I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s blown past Carter (only because he’s the longest ex-president that I can think of).

That paper trail will also show how much money he has been billing taxpayers for his properties. Of course they don’t want it released.

JC wrote:

That paper trail will also show how much money he has been billing taxpayers for his properties. Of course they don’t want it released.

This is the real answer. I suspect comparing those charges to the going rates at those properties would reveals some... discrepancies

Justice Dept. winds down Clinton-related inquiry once championed by Trump. It found nothing of consequence.

WaPo wrote:

A Justice Department inquiry launched more than two years ago to mollify conservatives clamoring for more investigations of Hillary Clinton has effectively ended with no tangible results, and current and former law enforcement officials said they never expected the effort to produce much of anything.

John Huber, the U.S. attorney in Utah, was tapped in November 2017 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to look into concerns raised by President Trump and his allies in Congress that the FBI had not fully pursued cases of possible corruption at the Clinton Foundation and during Clinton’s time as secretary of state, when the U.S. government decided not to block the sale of a company called Uranium One.

As a part of his review, Huber examined documents and conferred with federal law enforcement officials in Little Rock who were handling a meandering probe into the Clinton Foundation, people familiar with the matter said. Current and former officials said that Huber has largely finished and found nothing worth pursuing — though the assignment has not formally ended and no official notice has been sent to the Justice Department or to lawmakers, these people said.

The effective conclusion of his investigation, with no criminal charges or other known impacts, is likely to roil some in the GOP who had hoped the prosecutor would vindicate their long-held suspicions about a political rival. Trump, though, has largely shifted his focus to a different federal prosecutor tapped to do a separate, special investigation: U.S. attorney in Connecticut John Durham, who Attorney General William P. Barr assigned last year to explore the origins of the FBI’s 2016 probe into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

That FBI investigation was being supervised by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in late 2017, when Trump and his supporters were pressuring senior law enforcement officials to appoint a second special counsel to pursue Clinton.

“Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn’t looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary and the Dems,” the president tweeted at the time.

IMAGE(https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OGC.ec6fc70b4af3f83806e3bf02391830b0&pid=Api&rurl=https%3a%2f%2fmedia.giphy.com%2fmedia%2fxGyAk7fcgJnlS%2fgiphy.gif&ehk=rfEnAuLd07MyES%2b8D6oF%2f%2f%2fjp8%2bmsWEltfUICEzAhrA%3d )

Did they check her emails, tho? They should check her emails.

He is our OJ Simpson

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...

Trump supporters on why they support him

Who the f*ck is still supporting OJ? Or ever was?

I've never heard a single person besides him that thinks he's innocent.

Stele wrote:

Who the f*ck is still supporting OJ? Or ever was?

I've never heard a single person besides him that thinks he's innocent.

I know a couple people from highschool who do. Other than that, no one.
Edit: as a side note, they also still believe in 2020 that Cosby was framed.

Stele wrote:

Who the f*ck is still supporting OJ? Or ever was?

I've never heard a single person besides him that thinks he's innocent.

Stele wrote:

Who the f*ck is still supporting OJ? Or ever was?

I've never heard a single person besides him that thinks he's innocent.

It's possible to both believe OJ did it and still discredit the corrupt, racist police and incompetent prosecutors, and want a modicum of justice based on that alone.

That was my take on the "Making a Murderer" series. I think Steven Avery did it, but he didn't receive fair, impartial justice. His nephew even less.