[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.

Judge Orders President Trump to Stop Building Border Wall With Emergency Money

Time wrote:

A federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump from building key sections of his border wall with money secured under his declaration of a national emergency, delivering what may prove a temporary setback on one of his highest priorities.

U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr.’s order prevents work from beginning on two of the highest-priority, Pentagon-funded wall projects — one spanning 46 miles (74 kilometers) in New Mexico and another covering 5 miles (8 kilometers) in Yuma, Arizona.

While the order applied only to those first-in-line projects, the judge made clear that he felt the challengers were likely to prevail at trial on their argument that the president was wrongly ignoring Congress’ wishes by diverting Defense Department money.

“Congress’s ‘absolute’ control over federal expenditures––even when that control may frustrate the desires of the Executive Branch regarding initiatives it views as important––is not a bug in our constitutional system. It is a feature of that system, and an essential one,” he wrote in his 56-page opinion.

It wasn’t a total defeat for the administration. Gilliam, an Oakland-based appointee of President Barack Obama, rejected a request by California and 19 other states to prevent the diversion of hundreds of millions of dollars in Treasury asset forfeiture funds to wall construction, in part because he felt they were unlikely to prevail on arguments that the administration skirted environmental impact reviews.

The delay may be temporary. The question for Gilliam was whether to allow construction with Defense and Treasury funds while the lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the state attorneys general were being considered. The cases still must be heard on their merits.

These lawsuits also brought to light the fact that the Trump administration has managed to build a whooping 1.7 miles of fencing with the $1.5 billion Congress allocated last year during the government shutdown. Nice to know that we traded putting almost 5 million people out of work for weeks and an $11 billion hit to our economy for less than two miles of fencing.

That last bit is the real kicker: roughly a billion a mile is what the "border wall" will cost. And this is not including other hidden costs or *gasp* maintenance or the fact that it does not stop immigrants from digging, flying or boating in.

fangblackbone wrote:

That last bit is the real kicker: roughly a billion a mile is what the "border wall" will cost. And this is not including other hidden costs or *gasp* maintenance or the fact that it does not stop immigrants from digging, flying or boating in.

The article didn't say that they have spent the 1.5 billion to build 1.7 miles of wall, it's saying they have only built 1.7 miles of wall so far with the money. It doesn't specify how much of that 1.5 billion has been used to build the 1.7 miles.

Well further digging in the article uncovers:
The states and the Sierra club that are suing the administration believes that the 1.5 billion has been spent already.
1.7 miles has been built
Contracts have been granted for 41 more miles which won't be finished until late next year
The report by the Customs and Border Protection does not state how much has been used and does not contradict those 1.5B for 1.7m claims by the suing parties.
The Army Corp of Engineers has spent 800 million of it already on contracts.
The planned 80 miles of building and refurbishing the wall is already off target because of 12-13 miles of construction that is unclear when it will be further consulted next year.

So best case scenario = $800 million for 1.7 miles of wall + an undisclosed amount of repairs that won't be completed until for a year and a half + 12 miles that has no estimate of completion. All out of 80 miles of planned wall repairs and construction.

A letter sent by the Office of Management and Budget back in January asked for $5.7 billion to construct 234 miles of fencing. That puts construction costs for Trump's wall at about $24.4 million per mile. That cost estimate has been steady since 2017. Early cost estimates from 2015 and 2016 came in around $15 million per mile.

The conservative Cato Institute thinks the OMB's estimate is garbage and believes that, at a minimum, a 50% cost overrun should be factored in, driving the cost up to $36.6 million per mile.

Neither estimate includes annual maintenance, which ran about $400K to $800K per mile under the Obama administration.

Trump administration planning to change how long-term effects of climate change are assessed

CNN wrote:

The Trump administration is planning to change how it assesses the long-term effects and impacts of climate change, The New York Times reported Monday.

The paper said the US Geological Survey will begin to limit in its reports how far into the future it projects the impact of climate change, which scientists say "could provide a misleading picture" of the consequences of man-made climate change. The administration is also planning to omit worst-case scenario projections from the National Climate Assessment, an interagency report that examines the impact of climate change, according to the Times.

The Times said the USGS, at the direction of its director, James Reilly, "has ordered that scientific assessments produced by that office use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously."

The change is being criticized by scientists who claim that new reports wouldn't provide an accurate assessment of the future impact of climate change "because the biggest effects of current emissions will be felt after 2040," according to the paper.

The Times said current models demonstrate that the earth's temperature will increase "at about the same rate through about 2050," but after that, the rate could change "significantly" based on carbon emission levels.

The administration is also planning to leave out worst-case scenario projections from its National Climate Assessment, a report that has been produced about every four years since 2000, according to the Times.

Head meet sand...
Very stable genius

Trump: Why would the United States concern itself with anything after 2040 when I am certain to be dead by then?

Yonder wrote:

Trump: Why would the United States concern itself with anything after 2040 when I am certain to be dead by then?

Pence is probably whispering in his ear that all the good Christian Americans will be raptured by 2040, so...

OG_slinger wrote:
Yonder wrote:

Trump: Why would the United States concern itself with anything after 2040 when I am certain to be dead by then?

Pence is probably whispering in his ear that all the good Christian Americans will be raptured by 2040, so...

God, please take them away so that we can have a nice, stable and happier place to live. I can’t wait for rapture either.

College freshman slipped into Mar-a-Lago while Trump was in town

The Palm Beach Post wrote:

Four months before a Chinese woman was accused of lying to get into Mar-a-Lago, an 18-year-old college freshman in November fooled Secret Service agents into thinking he was a club member and wandered the grounds for 20 minutes before he was arrested.

An apologetic Mark Lindblom on Tuesday told a federal magistrate that he had no evil intentions when he decided to try and enter the club on the day after Thanksgiving while President Donald Trump and his family were visiting. The Washington, D.C. teenager said he just wanted to see if he could do it.

And, according to accounts from his attorney and a federal prosecutor, it was pretty easy.

Visiting his grandparents, who are members of the nearby Palm Beach Bath & Tennis Club, Lindblom simply walked down the beach the two clubs share.

Once at a tunnel under State Road A1A that gives Mar-a-Lago members exclusive access to the beach, Lindblom stood in line with club members who were waiting to pass through a metal detector manned by Secret Service agents, said his attorney Marcos Beaton.

“Mr. Lindblom was wanded by Secret Service agents and he walked on through,” Beaton said.

The ease with which Lindblom gained access to the club again raises questions about the Secret Service agency’s ability to protect Trump while he is visiting the members-only club he has dubbed the Winter White House.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John McMillan and Secret Service agent Leo Fridella declined comment on Lindblom’s ability to gain access to Mar-a-Lago, which was under tight security because of Trump’s visit.

“I can say it wouldn’t happen today,” McMillan said. He referred questions to officials at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. They weren’t immediately available for comment.

So what McMillan is really saying is that anyone could have wandered into Mar-a-Lago and got near Trump until a Chinese national was caught doing exactly that a few months ago.

So I came up with a Trump slogan today:
All Tweet, No Meat

It may be hyperbolic but to me, no one has done so little being born into so much.
Corrupt Loser. Cheating Liar.

OG_slinger wrote:

A letter sent by the Office of Management and Budget back in January asked for $5.7 billion to construct 234 miles of fencing. That puts construction costs for Trump's wall at about $24.4 million per mile. That cost estimate has been steady since 2017. Early cost estimates from 2015 and 2016 came in around $15 million per mile.

The conservative Cato Institute thinks the OMB's estimate is garbage and believes that, at a minimum, a 50% cost overrun should be factored in, driving the cost up to $36.6 million per mile.

Neither estimate includes annual maintenance, which ran about $400K to $800K per mile under the Obama administration.

Other than playing to his base and distracting from other sh*t he's doing (or not doing, as it may be), who is it that stands to profit the most from this wall? Which friends of his? Will the wall be branded with his name? Will he collect tariffs on the wall?

There's gotta be something else here that I'm not seeing. That's one expensive ass wall and someone connected to the admin has to be raking in bucks. Is Raytheon building it?

garion333 wrote:

Other than playing to his base and distracting from other sh*t he's doing (or not doing, as it may be), who is it that stands to profit the most from this wall? Which friends of his? Will the wall be branded with his name? Will he collect tariffs on the wall?

There's gotta be something else here that I'm not seeing. That's one expensive ass wall and someone connected to the admin has to be raking in bucks. Is Raytheon building it?

I realize thais may have been rhetorical, but:

Here are the companies poised to profit from the Trump border wall

thrawn82 wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Other than playing to his base and distracting from other sh*t he's doing (or not doing, as it may be), who is it that stands to profit the most from this wall? Which friends of his? Will the wall be branded with his name? Will he collect tariffs on the wall?

There's gotta be something else here that I'm not seeing. That's one expensive ass wall and someone connected to the admin has to be raking in bucks. Is Raytheon building it?

I realize thais may have been rhetorical, but:

Here are the companies poised to profit from the Trump border wall

Oh, I see Israel. Shocking.

garion333 wrote:

Other than playing to his base and distracting from other sh*t he's doing (or not doing, as it may be), who is it that stands to profit the most from this wall? Which friends of his? Will the wall be branded with his name? Will he collect tariffs on the wall?

There's gotta be something else here that I'm not seeing. That's one expensive ass wall and someone connected to the admin has to be raking in bucks. Is Raytheon building it?

Besides the companies thrawn82 linked to, there's also a dark horse: Fisher Industries. The company's CEO, Tommy Fischer, has wooed Trump by donating to his reelection campaign, repeatedly going on Fox News and saying he can build 200 miles of the wall in under a year, and actively courting other immigration hardliners.

He was most recently in the news because it was his firm that built the private wall in Sunland Park, NM that was GoFundMe'd by Brian Kolfage. Unsurprisingly, Sunland Park and New Mexico have halted construction because the group failed to get the proper permits and approval for the wall.

All of this, of course, has worked on Trump. He's repeatedly called the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and "aggressively" lobbied to award a border wall contract to Fisher Industries to the point that Trump's "push for a specific company has alarmed military commanders and DHS officials."

Fisher got removed from the bidding process previously. It built a concrete barrier prototype that was rejected and has since tried to come back with a metal slat design that the DHS and Army Corps of Engineers say is inadequate and lower quality than other designs.

But lobbying from the White House--both Trump and Kushner--forced the Army Corps of Engineers to add Fisher back to the bidding process. But then then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen had to meet with Trump and explain to him that Fisher could bid, but that the company’s proposal needed to change, and that Trump could not just pick the company. (Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the commanding general of the Army Corps of Engineers, also had to explain to Trump that he couldn't just pick a company he liked.)

Pettiness to the Nth degree: White House Wanted USS John McCain ‘Out of Sight’ During Trump Japan Visit

WSJ wrote:

The White House wanted the U.S. Navy to move “out of sight” a warship named for the late Sen. John McCain—a war hero who became a frequent target of President Trump’s ire—and his father and grandfather ahead of the president’s visit to Japan last week, according to an email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

In a May 15 email to U.S. Navy and Air Force officials, a U.S. Indo-Pacific Command official outlined plans for the president’s arrival that he said had resulted from conversations between the White House Military Office and the Seventh Fleet of the U.S. Navy. In addition to instructions for the proper landing areas for helicopters and preparation for the USS Wasp—where the president was scheduled to speak—the official issued a third directive: “USS John McCain needs to be out of sight.”

“Please confirm #3 will be satisfied,” the official wrote.

They couldn't move the ship because of damage so they hung a tarp over the name, removed other markings, and gave sailors the day off so he wouldn't see their caps.

Maybe if they were issued MAGA patches for their uniforms, it would have been fine.

That was the USS Wasp- aircrew were photographed with "Make Aircrew Great Again" patches, and the Navy is investigating if uniform regulations were violated. Honestly I'm on the fence about that one; it's jokey and just uses the president's likeness without being overtly political. Makes sense though, with much of this president's core support coming from WASPs.

So then while the McCain's crew gets a one day leave just to be invisible when Trump was there, the Wasp's crew probably will get a medal ceremony at the White House with catering a step up from fast food.

The Energy Department put out a press release that quoted U.S. Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes referring to natural gas exports as "spreading freedom gas throughout the world" as well as a quote from Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Steven Winberg praising the Trump administration for allowing "molecules of U.S. freedom to be exported to the world."

Now I'll admit I've written a draft or two of a press release that incorporated an outlandish or nonsensical quote out of sheer boredom, but I never let it get into the approval cycle. So that must mean that the folks at the Energy Department literally think that it's great to refer to natural gas as "freedom gas."

Quick! Someone rebrand the following things and see what we can get approved by this administration:

Universal Health Care = Freedom Care
Free College tuition = Freedom College
Abortion = Freedom Choice
Marijuana = Freedom Smoke
Impeachment = Freedom Hearings

Tscott wrote:

Quick! Someone rebrand the following things and see what we can get approved by this administration:

Universal Health Care = Freedom Care
Free College tuition = Freedom College
Abortion = Freedom Choice
Marijuana = Freedom Smoke
Impeachment = Freedom Hearings

No, that was the oughts. You need to name it TrumpCare and similar.

qaraq wrote:

Pettiness to the Nth degree: White House Wanted USS John McCain ‘Out of Sight’ During Trump Japan Visit

They couldn't move the ship because of damage so they hung a tarp over the name, removed other markings, and gave sailors the day off so he wouldn't see their caps.

And this is what Republicans now mean by supporting our troops?

farley3k wrote:
qaraq wrote:

Pettiness to the Nth degree: White House Wanted USS John McCain ‘Out of Sight’ During Trump Japan Visit

They couldn't move the ship because of damage so they hung a tarp over the name, removed other markings, and gave sailors the day off so he wouldn't see their caps.

And this is what Republicans now mean by supporting our troops?

They only like troops who weren't captured, remember?

lunchbox12682 wrote:

No, that was the oughts. You need to name it TrumpCare and similar.

Hard pass. We all know what happens when you do that- T college, T steaks, T casinos...

Tscott wrote:
lunchbox12682 wrote:

No, that was the oughts. You need to name it TrumpCare and similar.

Hard pass. We all know what happens when you do that- T college, T steaks, T casinos...

Also anything with the Trump name on it goes bankrupt.

Stele wrote:
Tscott wrote:
lunchbox12682 wrote:

No, that was the oughts. You need to name it TrumpCare and similar.

Hard pass. We all know what happens when you do that- T college, T steaks, T casinos...

Also anything with the Trump name on it goes bankrupt.

That'sTheJoke.gif

I get news alerts from CNN on my phone and I appreciated the headline they used with the alert to this story- "Trump unleashes a flurry of lies". So much better than the usual "Trump says..." headline that only repeats the lie he's telling without calling it out for what it is.