4463 replies to this topic

[AxlsMainMan]

Or illegal immigrants, or liberal arts majors. 

[PERM BANNED]

If this is the budget deal we get when Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency, there's no point in ever voting for a Republican again. 

Not only is there no funding for a wall, but -- thanks to the deft negotiating skills of House Speaker Paul Ryan -- the bill actually prohibits money from being spent on a wall. 

At a CYA press conference on Tuesday, Trump's ridiculously chipper budget director, Mick Mulvaney, described the bill's prohibition on building a wall as a MAJOR win. (At least Mulvaney said it in English, unlike his all-Spanish 2014 townhall.) 

True, there will be no wall. But the Democrats graciously agreed to allow the administration to fix broken parts of any existing fences on up to 40 miles of our 3,000 mile border. 

The other big wins, according to Mulvaney, are: 

1) more defense spending, which is fantastic news, because I was worried Boeing and Lockheed Martin CEOs were falling behind Mark Zuckerberg with their gluttonous salaries; and 

2) school choice, an obsession of Washington wonks that is hated out in America, where parents move to high-tax towns for the express purpose of avoiding schools full of disaffected urban youth, and the disaffected urban youth don't want to spend two hours on a bus every day. 

But Mulvaney assures us that this monstrosity of a spending bill has set things up beautifully for the next budget negotiation in October. 

That has become the GOP's official motto: "Next time!" 

We can never win this time. Instead, Republicans' idea is always to surrender this time, in hopes that their gentlemanliness will be rewarded by their mortal enemies next time. Then, next time comes, and Republicans again surrender in hopes of currying favor with the Democrats and the media for the next time.

 

 

Mulvaney's most disturbing comment was to say that what upset Trump the most was the Democrats' "spiking the football" on this deal. 

Apparently, Trump's fine with no wall -- and everything else in a bill straight out of George Soros' dream journal -- if only the Democrats hadn't been so rude as to tell the public about it. When your main complaint is that the other side is gloating too much, maybe you're not that great a negotiator. 

Yeah, sure, it's only 100 days in, it's an artificial deadline, the media is dying to say Trump has failed and so on. 

Except: Planning for the wall should have begun on Nov. 9, and a spade should have been put into the earth to begin building it the day after Trump's inauguration. Now, it's 100 days later, and we still don't have the whisper of a prospect of a wall. 

Moreover, this isn't one random bill funding Planned Parenthood (which this bill does). This is the budget deal. There won't be another one like it until next October. 

That's a spectacular failure. Democrats have got to be pinching themselves, thinking, Am I dreaming this? 

It's theoretically possible that Trump could still build a wall, but he's just massively lengthened the odds of ever prevailing. Sure, you can let the other team build a 20-point lead in first half and still come back to beat them, but it's a lot easier if you don't go into halftime 20 points down. 

Trump entered the presidency with the only kind of power that matters. He didn't owe Wall Street a thing. He didn't owe anyone -- not donors, lobbyists nor any political party. What he had was the people, passionately on his side. 

But as soon as he got into office, Trump started giving away his miraculous, unprecedented power. Hey, Wall Street! Even though you didn't give me any money, is it too late to be your friend? 

No amount of abandoning his supporters will get Trump anywhere with Wall Street, Hollywood or the media. Their ferocity will simply shift to ridicule. 

Admittedly, Trump has the enormous handicap of having to work through congressional Republicans, who are feckless cowards. If Speaker Ryan and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell had been around for Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers, they would have been hysterically screaming, No! You can't do that -- the planes will crash! 

This isn't new information. We knew Washington Republicans were useless. That's why we elected such a comically improbable president as Donald J. Trump. 

The deal was that we were getting the Hollywood version of a New York businessman: an uncouth, incurious rube -- who would be ruthless in getting whatever he wanted. 

In addition to being the only candidate for president in either party taking America's side on trade, immigration, jobs and crime, what set Trump apart was his promise that we would finally win. 

Remember? There would be so much winning, we were going to get "sick and tired of winning," and beg him, "Please, please, we can't win anymore. ... It's too much. It's not fair to everybody else." 

We're not winning. We're losing, and we're losing on the central promise of Trump's campaign. 

How would Trump, the businessman, react if an underling charged with developing a new golf course could never break ground?

What if the subordinate's progress reports sounded like this: I have given 21 speeches to various chambers of commerce and neighborhood groups, assuring them that there's going to be a golf course. Everywhere I go, I say, "Don't worry about it. It's going to be built!" I have started a commission to study developing a golf course. I have put up a sign saying, "Golf course coming!" And I have caved, and caved, and caved -- so now our opponents know what good guys we are. 

Trump would fire that employee so fast your head would spin. 

We want the ruthless businessman we were promised. 

 

http://www.anncoulte....html#read_more

[Mr. Roboto]

Trump transition raised flags about Flynn Russia contacts

 

By JULIE PACE

1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — In late November, a member of Donald Trump’s transition team approached national security officials in the Obama White House with a curious request: Could the incoming team get a copy of the classified CIA profile on Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States?

 

Marshall Billingslea, a former Pentagon and NATO official, wanted the information for his boss, Michael Flynn, who had been tapped by Trump to serve as White House national security adviser. Billingslea knew Flynn would be speaking to Kislyak, according to two former Obama administration officials, and seemed concerned Flynn did not fully understand he was dealing with a man rumored to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

 

To the Obama White House, Billingslea’s concerns were startling: a member of Trump’s own team suggesting the incoming Trump administration might be in over its head in dealing with an adversary.

 

The request now stands out as a warning signal for Obama officials who would soon see Flynn’s contacts with the Russian spiral into a controversy that would cost him his job and lead to a series of shocking accusations hurled by Trump against his predecessor’s administration.

 

In the following weeks, the Obama White House would grow deeply distrustful of Trump’s dealing with the Kremlin and anxious about his team’s ties. The concern — compounded by surge of new intelligence, including evidence of multiple calls, texts and at least one in-person meeting between Flynn and Kislyak — would eventually grow so great Obama advisers delayed telling Trump’s team about plans to punish Russia for its election meddling. Obama officials worried the incoming administration might tip off Moscow, according to one Obama adviser.

 

The Trump White House declined to comment.

 

This account of the closing days of the Obama administration is based on interviews with 11 current and former U.S. officials, including seven with key roles in the Obama administration. The officials reveal an administration gripped by mounting anxiety over Russia’s election meddling and racing to grasp the Trump team’s possible involvement before exiting the White House. Most of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive national security information.

 

The Obama White House’s role in the Russia controversy will come under fresh scrutiny Monday. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates are slated to testify before lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, one of three committees investigating Trump’s associates links to Moscow.

 

Trump has said he has no nefarious ties to Russia and isn’t aware of any involvement by his aides in Moscow’s interference in the election. He’s dismissed an FBI and congressional investigations into his campaign’s possible ties to the election meddling as a “hoax” driven by Democrats bitter over losing the White House.

 

Yates, an Obama administration official who carried over into the Trump administration, is expected to tell lawmakers that she expressed alarm to the Trump White House about Flynn’s contacts with the Russian ambassador. Trump fired Yates days later, after she told the Justice Department to not enforce the new president’s travel and immigration ban. Flynn was forced to resign three weeks later for misleading Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about the content of his discussions with Kislyak.

 

Yates’s warnings about Flynn in January capped weeks of building concern among top Obama officials. The president himself that month told one of his closest advisers that the FBI, which by then had been investigating Trump associates’ possible ties to Russia for about six months, seemed particularly focused on Flynn.

 

Obama aides described Flynn as notably dismissive of the threat Russia posed to the United States when discussing policy in transition meetings with outgoing national security adviser Susan Rice and other top officials.

 

Officials also found it curious that Billingslea only ever asked Obama’s National Security Council for one classified leadership profile to give to Flynn: the internal document on Kislyak.

 

The CIA compiles classified biographies of foreign officials, known as leadership profiles. The profiles include U.S. intelligence assessments about the officials, in addition to biographical information.

 

When reached by the AP, Billingslea refused to comment. Last month, Trump announced his intention to nominate Billingslea to serve as assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the Treasury Department.

 

Trump has accused Obama officials of illegally leaking classified information about Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak. He’s also contended, without evidence, that Rice asked for the names of Trump officials caught up in routine intelligence monitoring to be improperly revealed, a charge Rice has denied.

 

The distrust in the other camp was clear months earlier. In late December, as the White House prepared to levy sanctions and oust Russians living in the in the U.S. in retaliation for the hacks, Obama officials did not brief the Trump team on the decision until shortly before it was announced publicly. The timing was chosen in part because they feared the transition team might give Moscow lead time to clear information out of two compounds the U.S. was shuttering, one official said.

 

While it’s not inappropriate for someone in Flynn’s position to have contact with a diplomat, Obama officials said the frequency of his discussions raised enough red flags that aides discussed the possibility Trump was trying to establish a one-to-one line of communication — a so-called back channel — with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Obama aides say they never determined why Flynn was in close contact with the ambassador.

 

Even with the suspicion, the officials said they did not withhold information.

 

The outgoing White House also became concerned about the Trump team’s handling of classified information. After learning that highly sensitive documents from a secure room at the transition’s Washington headquarters were being copied and removed from the facility, Obama’s national security team decided to only allow the transition officials to view some information at the White House, including documents on the government’s contingency plans for crises.

 

Some White House advisers now privately concede that the administration moved too slowly during the election to publicly blame Russia for the hack and explore possible ties to the Trump campaign. Others say it was only after the election, once Obama ordered a comprehensive review of the election interference, that the full scope of Russia’s interference and potential Trump ties become clearer.

[Mr. Roboto]

Here we go again.

 

Macron campaign blasts 'massive hacking attack' ahead of French presidential election

[Timothy]

I swear some of this stuff seem be the plot of a bad tv/movie....

[Mr. Roboto]

Since it appears the Trump saga is only getting started, I created a new thread here for all things Trump.  

[Mr. Roboto]

Republican candidate charged with assault after 'body-slamming' Guardian reporter

 

Also:

 

Gianforte, 56, is a billionaire businessman who sold his company, RightNow Technologies, in 2011 and apparently now spends his time funneling money toward the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum, which publishes a newsletter explaining that "the Biblical worldview is consistent with the scientific evidence we find in the fossil record" and argues that dinosaurs rode on Noah's Ark.

 

Gianforte is a big fan of citing Noah, as it turns out. In a 2015 talk at the Montana Bible College, he told the audience that he doesn't believe in retirement because Noah was 600 when he built the ark. "There's nothing in the Bible that talks about retirement. And yet it's been an accepted concept in our culture today," Gianforte said. "Nowhere does it say, 'Well, he was a good and faithful servant, so he went to the beach.' It doesn't say that anywhere."

 

He added: "The example I think of is Noah. How old was Noah when he built the ark? Six hundred. He wasn't like, cashing Social Security checks, he wasn't hanging out, he was working. So, I think we have an obligation to work. The role we have in work may change over time, but the concept of retirement is not biblical."

 

 

http://theweek.com/s...orking-when-600

[freedom78]

Can you imagine doing away with anything not Biblical?  Like fucking Cheetos.  No Cheetos in the Bible.  Jesus didn't eat Cheetos.  Moses didn't free a family size bag of Cheetos from Pharoah, a la "LET MY CHEETOS GO!". 

 

Fucking idiot.  "It's not Biblical" is only one word away from an ISIS mentality.

[artcinco]

I read about that Montana race. It sounded like the choice was horrible much like the recent presidential race.

[Mr. Roboto]

Running against Ryan: 

 

[Mr. Roboto]

https://www.kidrockforsenate.com/

[Mr. Roboto]

GOP Seeks to Close Federal Election Agency

 

House Republicans are pressing to defund the sole federal agency that exclusively works to ensure the voting process is secure

[freedom78]

The GOP attack on our elections is criminal.  They have clearly demonstrated at this point that they place winning above anything else.  Winning is more important than democracy.  Winning is more important than foreign attacks.  Winning is more important than their own values.  When the party of conservatism backs a Russian government supported sexual assaulter, you know they've lost their minds.

[Its Cousin]

I suspect Kentucky's 6th congressional district will be turning blue next November.

 

[Mr. Roboto]