[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.

With all due respect to you, r013nt0, I reported your comment, a first.
Attempting to shame someone who took offense to purity test comments applied with disregard to participants of this forum, doubles down on that disrespect.
We understand your unyielding mistrust of the Democratic Party. Many of us agree but do not see this issue as black and white either. It is my hope that you will not ridicule this opinion and understand that the "shame on you" was used to remind you that those who aren't as unyielding are not enemies to be ridiculed or subjects to be tested in logic traps.

You reported my comment for what, exactly, quoting you without any editing? For attempting to demonstrate to you the sheer hypocrisy of trying to shame -literally your words- us for you feeling like you're being shamed?

I mean, do what you're gonna do I guess? I honestly couldn't care any less.

fangblackbone wrote:

With all due respect to you, r013nt0, I reported your comment, a first.
Attempting to shame someone who took offense to purity test comments applied with disregard to participants of this forum, doubles down on that disrespect.
We understand your unyielding mistrust of the Democratic Party. Many of us agree but do not see this issue as black and white either. It is my hope that you will not ridicule this opinion and understand that the "shame on you" was used to remind you that those who aren't as unyielding are not enemies to be ridiculed or subjects to be tested in logic traps.

I don't think this being your first 'report' on a comment is nearly the big deal you seem to be making of it if you're also going to (edit) jump to attacking someone, someone you might only disagree with, for imposing a purity test.

Just because someone doesn't agree with you on the shade of grey doesn't mean they only see things as black and white any more than you do.

You only chose to tell me I wasn't being helpful.

No I did not. So I will be more clear:
"AYFKM!" means that I strongly disagree with your comments and how it paints unknown numbers of GWJers as dishonorable, traitorous, or counter productive to a "true" party, progressive agenda or whatever you envision.

Not being "helpful" was a tasteful way of saying that you are entitled to your position that I disagree with but you are shutting out a significant portion of GWJers from the discussion regarding the intentions of The Lincoln Project.

I am a bit undecided on the future intentions of the Lincoln Project. But there is one precedent that informs me the strongest. Every single Never-Trumper has refused to join the Democratic Party. They ALL become independent. I just can't see it changing for decades that "D" is political suicide for them. That was there long before Trump and no matter how much Trump sullies "R", it will always "trump" "D".

fangblackbone wrote:
You only chose to tell me I wasn't being helpful.

No I did not. So I will be more clear:
"AYFKM!" means that I strongly disagree with your comments and how it paints unknown numbers of GWJers as dishonorable, traitorous, or counter productive to a "true" party, progressive agenda or whatever you envision.

Not being "helpful" was a tasteful way of saying that you are entitled to your position that I disagree with but you are shutting out a significant portion of GWJers from the discussion regarding the intentions of The Lincoln Project.

I am a bit unclear on the future intentions of the Lincoln Project. But there is one precedent that informs me the strongest. Every single Never-Trumper has refused to join the Democratic Party. They ALL become independent. I just can't see it changing for decades that "D" is political suicide for them. That was there long before Trump and no matter how much Trump sullies "R", it will always "trump" "D".

Oh, you think I mean like, every single (so-called*) moderate democrat down to people posting here.

No, I mean people in the party with the power to decide who gets hired as advisors and operatives. Like I said: "will not hesitate to turn them loose on the left when they're done with Trump."

*(that's a different discussion.)

fangblackbone wrote:

I am a bit undecided on the future intentions of the Lincoln Project. But there is one precedent that informs me the strongest. Every single Never-Trumper has refused to join the Democratic Party. They ALL become independent. I just can't see it changing for decades that "D" is political suicide for them. That was there long before Trump and no matter how much Trump sullies "R", it will always "trump" "D".

We’ve been talking past each other. They don’t need to actually become Democrats, they just need the Democrats to trust them enough to give them influence and maybe cabinet positions, which can and probably will happen, judging from the reaction they’re getting.

EDIT: Cheeze beat me to it.

SallyNasty wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:
edit: the more I think about it, the more I wonder if so-called 'moderate' Democrats *want* them in the party, and will not hesitate to turn them loose on the left when they're done with Trump. I'm not sure it's even any kind of conscious decision, it'll just come naturally to them.

ARE YOU f*ckING KIDDING ME?!
How is this helpful?
And other GWJers "liked" this? Shame on you!
This kind of logic hurts the Democratic party way more than Lincoln Project ads. Maybe that is what (so called language too?) "progressives" want: to poison the Democratic party before they vote Green or sit out this election?

Republicans are infighting and we just can't let them have all the fun and steal the limelight can we?

My only regret is that I have but one "like" to give.

Because of this post, I was able to give it two likes.

~mod~ Not helping. No personal attacks. - amoebic

Oh, you think I mean like, every single (so-called*) moderate democrat down to people posting here.

No, I mean people in the party with the power to decide who gets hired as advisors and operatives. Like I said: "will not hesitate to turn them loose on the left when they're done with Trump."

*(that's a different discussion.)

There is a REAL risk there. It is one of the things that does nearly keep me up at night regarding Biden.
I am still mystified by the choice of Biden but we need a coalition and for whatever reason, a coalition came out of South Carolina and hasn't faltered. i am not going to drink the cool aid but I am not going to get in its way either.
My hope is that he seems to be heeding Obama's advice and Obama seems to be re-energized but in a place that he doesn't smother Biden. I am pretty sure Obama would counsel against giving Never-Trumpers influence.

Messaging to is another topic. We do need to keep reminding ourselves that the Lincoln Project's messaging is a double edged sword. Plus, it cannot be understated that corporate money influence in politics needs to be lessened, not promoted.

@ruhk - The thought of cabinet positions, even minor ones, is a door we don't want to pass through. I feel like with Never Trumpers, it is a jail metaphor where turning states evidence will net you a couple years off your sentence but not let you off with parole or community service. I am glad you chose to be sane but you aren't getting any award for it and you can't escape your culpability.

ruhk wrote:

You’re kidding, right? Assuming the crew behind TLP doesn’t turn out to be comprised entirely of baby hitlers standing on each other’s shoulders in trenchcoats, the Dems will absolutely welcome “sane” Republicans looking to “restore normality.” Especially Biden, who has stated repeatedly that the only problem with the country is Trump, and that the GOP is all fine gentlemen who will fall in line once he’s ousted. And I’m frankly surprised Schumer and Pelosi haven’t already found a way of knighting the TLP guys yet, despite that not even being a thing in the US.

From earlier this month:

Joe Biden used to predict a post-Trump GOP 'epiphany.' Now he doesn't.

NBC wrote:

Weeks after launching his presidential campaign, Joe Biden predicted that once President Donald Trump was defeated, Republican lawmakers would have an “epiphany” and be more willing to cooperate with Democrats to solve the country’s problems.

His progressive critics weren’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Left-leaning activists and some 2020 rivals lambasted the former vice president as hopelessly naive — had he met Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell? Did he nap through the Obama administration?

Biden didn’t relent. And most voters didn’t seem to mind.

“With Donald Trump out of the way, you’re going to see a number of my Republican colleagues have an epiphany. Mark my words. Mark my words,” he said at a Nov. 6 fundraiser hosted by the Washington law firm Sidley Austin.

Then his message subtly shifted.

Biden stopped using the word “epiphany.” His predictions of future GOP behavior morphed into optimism and hope that they’d feel freer to cooperate in a post-Trump world.

At a recent NAACP town hall, Biden said that “with Trump gone, his ability to retaliate against Republicans is diminished.” He said that “maybe” GOP colleagues “will find the courage to do what I know many of them think they should do, but that remains to be seen.”

Biden never rescinded his vows to invite Republicans to the table, but he had refined his message. He won the Democratic primary and now enjoys a substantial lead in polls against Trump as voters find solace in his pleas to heal a country plagued by a pandemic, recession and racial tribalism.

Asked about Biden’s earlier predictions of a Republican epiphany, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a close ally who holds Biden’s old Senate seat, interrupted with a pithy retort: “Have you heard him say that in the last six months?”

The shift in signaling from Biden points to a daunting challenge he will face if elected president: Can he deliver? A partisan gulf that began decades ago has widened and deepened under Trump, making it likely that Biden’s agenda to rebuild the country would run into the same kind of Republican opposition that Barack Obama faced as president.

“Nobody knows better than Joe Biden just how much Mitch McConnell’s obstruction cost than the vice president who was charged with going to the Senate and trying to get bipartisan support for the Affordable Care Act, for the Recovery Act, for critical nominations,” Coons told NBC News in an interview. “Joe is perfectly clear-eyed about the moment we’re going to face in January if he’s elected.”

Even Obama is now on the “if you win, rule with authority, no compromises, no regrets” bandwagon. But everyone should remember that TLP folks will need at least one cycle, maybe more, to get into office in the first place. No way are they getting cabinet positions just for their work on ads; that’s no Dem policy-wonk style. I think in light of all the actual sh*t going down these days, this particular argument has very little meaning in real terms. TLP as fellow travelers is not going to take down the Democratic Party when it comes to power; Democrats are quite capable of doing that by themselves.

So I guess they’re going to go full on nazi propaganda now...

Trump campaign temporarily halts ad spending for review of messaging strategy

"With the leadership change in the campaign, there's understandably a review and fine-tuning of the campaign's strategy. We'll be back on the air shortly, even more forcefully exposing Joe Biden as a puppet of the radical left-wing," a senior campaign official told CNN.

That link is broken.

EvilDead wrote:

That link is broken.

Fixed!

It’s hilarious that Trump is characterizing Democrats as if they’re the Khmer Rouge ready to institute Zero Hour and meanwhile liberals are falling into the warm embrace of the people that made the Iraq War, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party possible.

It’s hilarious that Trump is characterizing Democrats as if they’re the Khmer Rouge ready to institute Zero Hour

... while grabbing people off the streets with secret police.

DSGamer wrote:

It’s hilarious that Trump is characterizing Democrats as if they’re the Khmer Rouge ready to institute Zero Hour and meanwhile liberals are falling into the warm embrace of the people that made the Iraq War, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party possible.

Not to mention his insistence that Biden is a Trojan Horse for the "Radical Left" despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

r013nt0 wrote:

Not to mention his insistence that Biden is a Trojan Horse for the "Radical Left" despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

Everything Trump says from a couple months ago until the election can be paraphased as:

"Wooooo-oooo-ooooo", said in a spooky voice while doing wiggly-finger ghost-mimes.

It's 100% "the boogeyman is coming for your children", and 0% "here's how voting for me will make your life demonstrably better".

Stealing for a Facebook post.

Jonman wrote:

Everything Trump says from a couple months ago until the election can be paraphased as:

"Wooooo-oooo-ooooo", said in a spooky voice while doing wiggly-finger ghost-mimes.

It's 100% "the boogeyman is coming for your children", and 0% "here's how voting for me will make your life demonstrably better".

Nailed it in one.

JC wrote:

So I guess they’re going to go full on nazi propaganda now...

Trump campaign temporarily halts ad spending for review of messaging strategy

"With the leadership change in the campaign, there's understandably a review and fine-tuning of the campaign's strategy. We'll be back on the air shortly, even more forcefully exposing Joe Biden as a puppet of the radical left-wing," a senior campaign official told CNN.

I'm gonna say it again, we are probably witnessing the largest ever theft in real time. When the dust settles, and Trump is presiding over Trumpbekstan, (5 square miles of prime Black Sea beach front) the accounting will show that besides whatever they are looting from their own campaign, they are probably just straight up siphoning off any federal pool of money they can get their paws on. Anyone have a webcam set up on Fort Knox?

Trump to ban TikTok probably because a Black woman used it to make fun of him. It's still not too late for the Black women of America to make fun of Trump on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Tiktok users organized the campaign that inflated the Tulsa rally numbers- the public embarrassment of that is probably what got to him the most.

I think this is the case. And he loved his rallies. Plus it’s a warning shot to the other social media companies. If he gets away with it, who’s to say he can’t threaten Facebook and Google the same way?

Holy sh*t! I thought that he could just ban it from government devices, which is fine. But how can he ban a commercial app?

Nevin73 wrote:

Holy sh*t! I thought that he could just ban it from government devices, which is fine. But how can he ban a commercial app?

He can't. Legally or practically. A savvy President would use a messaging campaign to tell the public that it is a dangerous security threat and maybe use tax incentives to get popular app stores to de-list it.

Irregularities In COVID Reporting Contract Award Process Raise New Questions

NPR wrote:

An NPR investigation has found irregularities in the process by which the Trump administration awarded a multi-million dollar contract to a Pittsburgh company to collect key data about COVID-19 from the country's hospitals.

The contract is at the center of a controversy over the administration's decision to move that data reporting function from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — which has tracked infection information for a range of illnesses for years — to the Department of Health and Human Services.

TeleTracking Technologies, the company that won the contract, has traditionally focused on creating software for hospitals to track patient status. And there are questions about how it came to be responsible for gathering data in the midst of a pandemic.

Among the findings of the NPR investigation:

-- The Department of Health and Human Services initially characterized the contract with TeleTracking as a no-bid contract. When asked about that, HHS said there was a "coding error" and that the contract was actually competitively bid.
-- The process by which HHS awarded the contract is normally used for innovative scientific research, not the building of government databases.
-- HHS had directly phoned the company about the contract, according to a company spokesperson.
TeleTracking CEO Michael Zamagias had links to the New York real estate world — and in particular, a firm that financed billions of dollars in projects with the Trump Organization.

...

The CEO of [TeleTracking], Michael Zamagias, came from the real estate sector. He founded Zamagias Properties, a real estate investment and development company, in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1987.

The company went on to develop iconic office buildings, shopping centers and malls in Pittsburgh and Virginia, and its success helped Zamagias become a fixture outside Pittsburgh and, in particular, in the New York real estate scene.

Zamagias is a longtime Republican donor and community philanthropist, giving generously to Pittsburgh schools and youth programs.

One of the young people who came to Zamagias for advice and counsel was a New Yorker named Neal Cooper, though he was hardly new to business or real estate. Zamagias became the young Cooper's mentor. He gave Cooper an internship.

Neal's father, Howard, was the named partner in a Manhattan company called Cooper-Horowitz, one of the largest privately held real estate debt and equity firms in the country.

"Cooper did business with Michael in the late 1980s," Neal Cooper told NPR, referring to his dad's company. "I don't know if we ever did big deals with him, but we ran in the same circles. I learned a lot from Michael. He was always one or two steps ahead of the next guy."

Cooper-Horowitz handles debt and equity in all classes of real estate and specializes in the hospitality industry.

And in that vein, it did billions of dollars of work with the Trump Organization on projects like the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago.

"I didn't handle Trump's account, but I've been in meetings with Trump," Cooper said. "We did tons of business with him, billions of dollars of business."

And there are other suggestions of a close relationship between Cooper-Horowitz and the Trumps.

Ivanka Trump has attended a rather famous holiday party the company holds in New York every year. The firm has given to the Trump Foundation. And Richard Horowitz, one of the company's principals, is credited with helping connect the Trump Organization with Deutsche Bank, the German bank that has financed over $2 billion in Trump projects over the past two decades.

...

Initially, there was confusion about the way HHS awarded the contract to TeleTracking. Public records originally displayed it as a sole-source contract — essentially a no-bid deal.

But after a Senate inquiry and controversy over the mandatory shift to the TeleTracking system, HHS said that there had been a "coding error" and that it had in fact been awarded after a competitive process.

"The TeleTracking contract was part of a competitive solicitation process and was not sole source," an HHS spokesperson said. "One of the websites that tracks federal spending contained an error that incorrectly categorized the award as sole source. That coding error is being corrected."

That competitive process, HHS said, is known as a Broad Agency Announcement.

BAAs are essentially call-outs to private industry to provide innovative solutions to general problems in which a simple straightforward solution may not be available — it isn't meant for something like a government database that replaces an existing CDC function.

A standard government contract would usually lay out a series of specific requirements or specifications. Not so with BAAs. By their very nature, they are less competitive than other types of government contracting processes because they may generate an array of solutions that may not necessarily be comparable.

In a statement, an HHS spokesperson said that the BAA is a "common mechanism... for areas of research interest," and asserted that the healthcare system capacity tracking system previously used by the CDC was "fraught with challenges."

HHS has said that six companies bid for the contract but declines to say who they were or release the evaluations that the department would have done before awarding the contract to TeleTracking.

"Federal acquisition regulations and statutes prohibit us from providing information about other submissions," an HHS spokesperson said. The spokesperson added that the BAA was released in August 2019, and that the agency promoted it on social media, in newsletters, and in emails.

But NPR reached out to more than 20 of TeleTracking's competitors in the fields of hospital workflow management and infection control data and was unable to find a single company that said it had bid on this contract.

One major company told NPR that it hadn't even heard about the HHS announcement.

There is another wrinkle here. A spokesperson for Zamagias told NPR that HHS reached out to the company directly — by phone — because it knew the company from its hurricane and disaster preparedness work.

It is unclear when that phone call was made.

Unsurprisingly, the new reporting system is functioning exactly how you'd expect a secretive IT project run by an inexperienced and unproven company that's managed by, well, I'm not sure we even know exactly who within the HHS is responsible for the system, and launched in the middle of a massive public health crisis with little to no forewarning or training: like sh*t.

Yeah, it's not like data is missing or anything.

From the Missouri Covid Dashboard:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EeWCMWGWkAAM8KP?format=png&name=small)

The small print:

*Hospitalizations is total occupancy due to COVID-19

Due to variation in the interpretation of the definition of suspected COVID-19 patients, there may be slight discrepancies in the reporting of this measure. The Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) has sought clarification from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and are awaiting formally documented clarification, which will be shared with DHSS.

Please note, due to an abrupt change in data measures and the reporting platform issued by the White House on Monday, July 13, and effective Wednesday, July 15, Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) and the State of Missouri were unable to access hospitalization data that met quality standards during the transition. As such, hospitalization data from the period of July 13 through July 24 will remain unavailable.

Can you imagine hospitals in the state losing data at that very moment? It's almost like there is a plan to make sure the epidemic continues through November. Plus they found another way to skim those sweet, sweet federal funds into Trump's pocket, unless you think they got the contract for free.

Jayhawker wrote:

Yeah, it's not like data is missing or anything.

From the Missouri Covid Dashboard:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EeWCMWGWkAAM8KP?format=png&name=small)

The small print:

*Hospitalizations is total occupancy due to COVID-19

Due to variation in the interpretation of the definition of suspected COVID-19 patients, there may be slight discrepancies in the reporting of this measure. The Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) has sought clarification from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and are awaiting formally documented clarification, which will be shared with DHSS.

Please note, due to an abrupt change in data measures and the reporting platform issued by the White House on Monday, July 13, and effective Wednesday, July 15, Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) and the State of Missouri were unable to access hospitalization data that met quality standards during the transition. As such, hospitalization data from the period of July 13 through July 24 will remain unavailable.

Can you imagine hospitals in the state losing data at that very moment? It's almost like there is a plan to make sure the epidemic continues through November. Plus they found another way to skim those sweet, sweet federal funds into Trump's pocket, unless you think they got the contract for free.

Yeah, I apologise for earlier saying the data collection was a bad but manageable thing. I didn't think that not all states handle like Minnesota, which I am most used to.
I'm not shocked by the above, just once again sad and disappointed.

ruhk wrote:

Tiktok users organized the campaign that inflated the Tulsa rally numbers- the public embarrassment of that is probably what got to him the most.

They had oodles of spare capacity, outside the arena. They could have filled that rally if anyone had wanted to show up. Blaming TikTok is just bloviation by the administration.

And no, Trump can't ban them, whatever he says. Even if it would be a good idea.