[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 abdicating power or leadership? Perish the thought.
He must have a elephant trunk for things that he can make a dumb power play on but have no immediate harm or harm that can't be clouded by a small team with the support of Fox News.

Gremlin wrote:

What really gets me is that a politician who figured out how to rise to the occasion would be having a massive popularity surge even if the current state of the pandemic was exactly the same.

See PM Trudeau, up here in Canada. Prior to the pandemic, he (and his party) were basically in a statistical tie with their opposition party. Now?? When all he is doing is saying "here is what the Public Health Agency of Canada recommends." (Granted, that's what I think he should be doing.)

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Retracted

DSGamer wrote:
JC wrote:
He gave carefully crafted answers, not answers that at least left me with the notion that he's going to protect the community that's currently under assault," said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel's top Democrat.

Democrats, man. Never stop giving token resistance.

Warner voted against Radcliffe's confirmation along with 43 other Democratic Senators. What additional resistance do you think he should have done?

OG_slinger wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
JC wrote:
He gave carefully crafted answers, not answers that at least left me with the notion that he's going to protect the community that's currently under assault," said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel's top Democrat.

Democrats, man. Never stop giving token resistance.

Warner voted against Radcliffe's confirmation along with 43 other Democratic Senators. What additional resistance do you think he should have done?

I actually misread his statement, to be honest. I thought it said, "He gave carefully crafted answers, not answers that at least left me with the notion that he's going to protect the community that's currently under assault,"

My bad.

DSGamer wrote:

I actually misread his statement, to be honest. I thought it said, "He gave carefully crafted answers, not answers that at least left me with the notion that he's going to protect the community that's currently under assault,"

My bad.

I'd like to point out I read it the same way you did, so you're not alone.

Speaking of Congress aiding and abetting the President:

[T]he day after Trump removed the State Department Inspector General, he removed yet another Inspector General, this one from the Department of Transportation. Career public servant Mitch Behm was serving as the Acting Inspector General of the Department of Transportation. He is to be replaced by Howard R. Elliott, who is the Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and who will continue to hold that office while also serving as the DOT IG. The kicker of this arrangement is that in his position as the administrator of PHMSA, Elliott reports to Elaine Chao, the Secretary of Transportation. So, rather than being independent, the Inspector General would actually report to the head of the department he is supposed to be inspecting.

It appears that Inspector General Behm was on the chopping block because he was investigating Secretary Chao’s conflicts of interest. Chao is married to Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Reports had surfaced that the Department of Transportation was steering contracts to Kentucky, where McConnell is running for reelection. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and Subcommittee on Government Operations, have all protested the firing and demanded documents relating to it.

Can Ashton just jump out already and yell punked? This just keeps getting crazier. Who will watch the watchmen‽

Donald Trump c/o The Mar A Lago club

Glad to see he got around to divesting everything!

This is rich....

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to "strongly regulate" or even shut down social media platforms after Twitter applied a fact-check to two of his tweets this week.

"Child throws tantrum after adults tell him 'No.'"

"Area man makes empty threats"

In an alternate universe, or maybe a twilight zone episode...

Trump somehow manages to shut down Twitter only to realize that Twitter has been the only thing sustaining him. Cut off from the evil he has created, he shrivels up into a petulant, shriveled, whinging little carcass, ignored by everyone.

Or it could go the other way and social media could force fact checking on every statement for legal protection. That probably wouldn't play well with the GOP.

Nevin73 wrote:

Or it could go the other way and social media could force fact checking on every statement for legal protection. That probably wouldn't play well with the GOP.

Either way is a win in my book.

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Jonman wrote:

"Area man makes empty threats"

"Florida Man bites the hand that feeds him."

Nevin73 wrote:

Or it could go the other way and social media could force fact checking on every statement for legal protection. That probably wouldn't play well with the GOP.

The GOP would repeal liability laws for hosted speech so fast....

For safety sake, I'll post this here rather than in the Space and Astronomy thread in Everything Else, but at least with today's launch delay we won't have to suffer through Trump and Elon Musk gloating.

Trump to sign executive order on social media amid Twitter furor

Kayleigh McEnany told reporters aboard Air Force One that the order is “pertaining to social media” but shared no additional details on what it will do.

Ah now I see what Mr. Dorsey was afraid of. Being the fall guy for the much needed corrective legislation that treats social media companies as publishers responsible for the vile sh*t they enable to be spewed. Weird start down that path, but hey, Democracy!**

The Democratic People's Republic of America is being made greater and greater.

LouZiffer wrote:

The Democratic People's Republic of America is being made greater and greater.

Who gave you access to my HOI4 saves on Steam?

Mixolyde wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

Or it could go the other way and social media could force fact checking on every statement for legal protection. That probably wouldn't play well with the GOP.

The GOP would repeal liability laws for hosted speech so fast....

We'll see who walks away from court happier when Republicans sue because Democrats said they're corrupt and discovery reveals... stuff, and Democrats sue because Republicans said they harvest children in their secret underground treason tunnels.

Tangentially, I expect HRC's lawyers have a storage unit full of files labeled "Open in case of overturning of NYT vs Sullivan".

Looks like Trump's going to try to top pretending that there's not a pandemic that's killed 100,000 Americans by pretending that 40+ million Americans aren't unemployed and the economy (that he's spent the past three years taking sole credit for) isn't in shambles.

Breaking precedent, White House won’t release formal economic projections this summer that would forecast extent of downturn

WaPo wrote:

White House officials have decided not to release updated economic projections this summer, opting against publishing forecasts that would almost certainly codify an administration assessment that the coronavirus pandemic has led to a severe economic downturn, according to three people with knowledge of the decision.

The White House is supposed to unveil a federal budget proposal every February and then typically provides a “mid-session review” in July or August with updated projections on economic trends such as unemployment, inflation and economic growth.

Budget experts said they were not aware of any previous White House opting against providing forecasts in this “mid-session review” document in any other year since at least the 1970s.

Two White House officials confirmed the decision had been made not to include the economic projections as part of the mid-session release. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said that the novel coronavirus is causing extreme volatility in the U.S. economy, making it difficult to model economic trends.

The document would be slated for publication just a few months before the November elections.

“It gets them off the hook for having to say what the economic outlook looks like,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who served as an economic adviser to the late senator John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Both liberal and conservative critics said the White House should publish its economic projections in line with the precedent set by prior administrations, regardless of the uncertainty caused by the pandemic. The White House under President Barack Obama continued to release these numbers during the Great Recession, although they were unflattering.

"I take no responsibility at all."

Archangel wrote:

"I take no responsibility at all."

Yep. Funny how we have 8 years worth of tweets where Trump says the previous president was responsible for everything and shouldn’t be allowed to do whatever he wanted. But now it’s all the president can do whatever he wants and isn’t responsible for any of it.

How weird to find myself agreeing with Trump that Section 230 really needs to be revisited, while also objecting to his executive order to do so and his motivations for it.

Companies have hidden behind 230 to justify inaction regarding some truly awful behavior (like the guy using Grindr to try to trick men into assaulting his ex-boyfriend) but there is no widespread conservative bias in social media moderation, and this whole thing is just Trump throwing a tantrum because he got fact checked.

I've said for a long time that the specter of regulation was coming for tech companies, and they could opt to self regulate Maa-style, or they'd have Congress do it for them. This is not the way to go about it, though.

Trump announces executive order against social media companies

What a f*cking snowflake. He lies for *years* and gets away with it but one time they say "he lied" and suddenly it is an important national issue.

Why is his lying to the public not an important national issue?

I hate social media, so I am all for him going to war with them. I also hate him so I am ok with social media winning the war.