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Post by domeplease on Feb 5, 2019 11:52:53 GMT -5
Remember my warning: A Trapped/Cornered Wounded Animal/Predator is more dangerous than ever…
MORE DONALD (MAN-CHILD) CRAP, HIS TEAM, THE GOP & RELATED ARTICLES, ETC.:
--02-05-19: us.cnn.com/2019/02/05/perspectives/state-of-the-union-trump-economy/index.html
President Trump frequently touts the strong economy as one of his great achievements, and he will likely do so again in his State of the Union address Tuesday.
He should take credit while he can. Sure, he inherited an economy moving solidly down the tracks, but he is set to leave one that is headed off the rails.
Nearly a year ago, Trump pushed massive deficit-financed tax cuts through the Republican Congress that temporarily juiced up the economy. But they came at a steep cost.
Businesses and wealthy households received a windfall, but the Treasury had to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from global investors to cut the checks.
Growth now, as the stimulus wears off, has slowed to where it was prior to the tax cut.
Trump's argument that the corporate tax cuts would incent businesses to invest more and support sustainably stronger long-term growth looks more and more like a pipe dream.
Corporations' effective tax rate — the taxes they pay as a percent of their profits — was cut in half to an all-time low but has yet to unleash more investment.
The president also argued that the tax cuts would pay for themselves. Not even close.
Tax revenues are plunging, and the nation's budget deficit is ballooning. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan government agency that does the bean counting, if we don't take a U-turn on the president's tax and spending policies, our collective finances will end in a train wreck.
Trump's trade war is also a corrosive on the economy.
Higher tariffs have cut into corporate profits — General Motors pointed to tariffs on steel and aluminum in its decision before Christmas to close several factories and cut thousands of jobs.
Businesses are nervous, unsure of whether the president's next move is to lower the tariffs or raise them. That's another reason business investment has flat-lined.
The rest of the global economy is also suffering fallout from the trade war, which is blowing back on us. Just ask Apple and other technology companies about their overseas sales.
Yet, the president has nothing to show for all the trade drama.
Consider the deal he struck with Canada and Mexico late last year — The United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement — which made nothing more than a few tweaks to the existing North American Free Trade Agreement, or last summer's handshake deal with the European Union that has to date led to no meaningful change in our trade relationship with the EU.
Trade negotiations with China appear headed to the same end. That is, after a lot of chest thumping, President Trump will ultimately agree to a face-saving, largely inconsequential trade deal with the Chinese.
Getting China to play fairly in the global economy and stop its bad behavior over intellectual property rights, forced technology transfer, market access and cyber espionage will have to wait for another day and another approach.
Immigration reform will surely come up during President Trump's address, but his immigration policy is economically wrong-headed.
US businesses say their biggest problem is finding qualified workers.
And with the large baby boom generation set to retire over the next decade, this will be a perennial problem.
Our farmers, hotel and restaurant owners, and transportation and construction companies are struggling to fill a record number of job openings.
If the president wants to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico, he will probably need to hire Mexicans to build it.
Our nation's comparative economic advantage is that we innovate, and we do so in significant part because we have historically welcomed new people and their fresh ideas.
We need more immigrants, not fewer. The president's only chance of fulfilling his campaign promise of sustainably stronger economic growth is to open his arms to more immigrants
--02-05-19 A MUST READ:
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-11/as-trump-mulls-wall-emergency-here-s-what-it-means-quicktake?srnd=premium
--02-05-19: www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/declaring-national-emergency-fund-trump-s-border-wall-may-be-ncna966586
Charles McFarland Declaring a national emergency to fund Trump's border wall may be what finally kills the project
Texas landowners would have few legal options if Congress funded the wall. But if Trump goes around them, lawyers will have a field day. READ MORE…
--02-02-19: www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mitch-mcconnell-quietly-warns-trump-off-national-emergency_us_5c552d17e4b00187b5511c84
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has privately cautioned President Donald Trump not to declare a national emergency to build his southern border wall, The Washington Post reported Friday.
He warned Trump that such a declaration might split the GOP and that Congress could pass a resolution opposing it, two Republican sources familiar with the conversation told the newspaper.
In such a situation Trump might be forced into the first veto of his presidency — against his own party, McConnell pointed out, according to the sources.
The exchange reportedly occurred in a face-to-face meeting in the White House that involved only the two men.
It’s difficult to know if the president’s repeated threats to declare an emergency to take the legislature out of the picture to build the wall is bluff or serious. Trump has insisted he will not agree to any deal unless it includes money for a wall.
But Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) flatly told reporters Thursday: “There’s not going to be any wall money in the legislation.”
The temporary funding bill that re-opened parts of the government expires Feb. 15.
“We will be looking at a national emergency because I don’t think anything’s going to happen” concerning an agreement, Trump told reporters at the White House.
Some GOP legislators have already spoken out against an emergency declaration — and against another government shutdown. GOP Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said that an emergency declaration was a “terrible idea” and that he would oppose it.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said last month that to “give the president authority basically to do that all by himself would, I think, stretch constitutional boundaries.” READ MORE…
--02-05-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-inaugural-committee-ordered-to-hand-over-documents-to-federal-investigators/ar-BBTbi5U?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP
Escalating one of the investigations into President Trump’s inaugural committee, federal prosecutors ordered on Monday that its officials turn over documents about donors, finances and activities, according to two people familiar with the inquiry.
The subpoena seeks documents related to all of the committee’s donors and guests; any benefits handed out, including tickets and photo opportunities with the president; federal disclosure filings; vendors; contracts; and more, one of the people said.
The new requests expand an investigation prosecutors opened late last year amid a flurry of scrutiny of the inaugural committee.
And they showed that the investigations surrounding Mr. Trump, once centered on potential ties to Russia during the 2016 presidential election, have spread far beyond the special counsel’s office to include virtually all aspects of his adult life: his business, his campaign, his inauguration and his presidency.
In the subpoena, investigators also showed interest in whether any foreigners illegally donated to the committee, as well as whether committee staff members knew that such donations were illegal, asking for documents laying out legal requirements for donations.
Federal law prohibits foreign contributions to federal campaigns, political action committees and inaugural funds.
Prosecutors also requested all documents related to vendors and contractors with the inaugural committee, which raised a record $107 million and spent lavishly.
People familiar with the subpoena said prosecutors are interested in potential money laundering as well as election fraud, though it is possible that the prosecutors do not suspect the inaugural committee of such violations.
The prosecutors cited those crimes in the subpoena simply as justification for their demand for documents, the people said. READ MORE…
--02-03-19 A GOOD READ: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-watershed-moment-trump-faces-crossroads-amid-mounting-threats-on-all-sides/ar-BBT6ELL?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP
--01-31-19: www.cnbc.com/2019/01/31/trump-considering-former-presidential-candidate-herman-cain-for-fed-appointment.html
OH JESUS!!! This is the 3-3-3 GUY??? GOD HELP US!!!
Former presidential candidate and Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain is under consideration for a Federal Reserve appointment, CNBC has confirmed.
President Donald Trump is contemplating nominating Cain for a Fed governorship
Cain met with Trump yesterday at the White House, where he was escorted by National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, CNBC's Eamon Javers confirmed.
CNBC has reached out to the White House for comment. Sources said Trump is meeting with multiple candidates for the Fed vacancy.
--01-31-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/sarah-sanders-god-wanted-trump-to-become-president/ar-BBSYecs?ocid=U147DHP
AGAIN = OH JESUS!!!
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed Wednesday that President Donald Trump's presidency was part of a higher calling.
“I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times and I think that he wanted Donald Trump to become president," Sanders said during an interview with Christian Broadcast Network News.
"And that’s why he’s there, and I think he has done a tremendous job in supporting a lot of the things that people of faith really care about."
The president has long touted his Christian faith, and his presidency was overwhelmingly supported by white evangelical voters.
Throughout his tenure, Trump and his administration have pursued a number of key issues backed by evangelicals, such as restricting abortion rights, eliminating a birth control mandate and expanding school choice and voucher programs that would likely benefit private religious schools.
Most recently, Trump in a tweet endorsed a controversial campaign to introduce Bible literacy classes to public schools. READ MORE…
--02-02-19: www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-tax-returns-hearing_us_5c536582e4b0bdf0e7d972f0?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=__Politics__020119&utm_content=__Politics__020119+Version+A+CID_0491db96e17af5c94ba0b226ef2ee409&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=READ%20MORE&ncid=newsltushpmgnews__Politics__020119
The secrecy of President Donald Trump’s tax returns will be the subject of a hearing next week, Democrats in the House of Representatives announced Thursday.
Democrats have had the power to request Trump’s tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service since they assumed control of the House this year, but they’ve hesitated.
To build the public case for disclosure, the House tax committee’s oversight panel will examine its authority to obtain the president’s tax returns at a Feb. 7 hearing. READ MORE…
--01-31-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-poised-to-rebuke-trump/ar-BBSZDg0?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP
Frustrated Republicans say it's time for the Senate to reclaim more power over foreign policy and are planning to move a measure Thursday that would be a stunning rebuke to a president of their own party.
GOP lawmakers are deeply concerned over President Trump's reluctance to listen to his senior military and intelligence advisers, fearing it could erode national security.
They say the Senate has lost too much of its constitutional power over shaping the nation's foreign policy and argue that it's time to begin clawing some of it back.
"Power over foreign policy has shifted to the executive branch over the last 30 years. Many of us in the Senate want to start taking it back," said a Republican senator closely allied with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
They plan to send Trump a stern admonishment by voting Thursday afternoon on an amendment sponsored by McConnell warning "the precipitous withdrawal" of U.S. forces from Syria and Afghanistan "could put at risk hard-won gains and United States national security."
The resolution also expresses a sense of the Senate that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al Qaeda pose a "continuing threat to the homeland and our allies" and maintain an "ability to operate in Syria and Afghanistan."
It's a pointed rebuttal to the claim Trump made on Twitter in December that "we have defeated ISIS in Syria."
Speaking on the Senate floor, McConnell said his amendment "simply re-emphasizes the expertise and counsel offered by experts who have served presidents of both parties," a subtle rebuff of Trump's tweets from earlier in the day mocking his intelligence advisers as "naive."
Trump stunned Republican senators Wednesday by lashing out at Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel after they contradicted some of his optimistic claims about the threats posed by North Korea and ISIS.
The senior intelligence officials also angered Trump by testifying that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear treaty it signed with Western powers under the Obama administration.
Trump tweeted "the Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!"
The president added in a follow-up tweet about Iran:
"Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!" Trump appeared to be responding to television news coverage that focused on how the testimony contradicted his views on global threats. READ MORE…
--01-31-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-in-interview-calls-wall-talks-waste-of-time-and-dismisses-investigations/ar-BBT1EvB?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP EVEN before the deadline in regards to the Wall has yet to expire; the Child (Donald), said this…
WASHINGTON — A defiant President Trump declared on Thursday that he has all but given up on negotiating with Congress over his border wall and will build it on his own even as he dismissed any suggestions of wrongdoing in the investigations that have ensnared his associates.
In an interview in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump called the talks “a waste of time” and indicated he will most likely take action on his own when they officially end in two weeks.
At the same time, he expressed optimism about reaching a trade deal with China and denied being at odds with his intelligence chiefs.
“I think Nancy Pelosi is hurting our country very badly by doing what she’s doing and, ultimately, I think I’ve set the table very nicely,” Mr. Trump said.
He made no mention of closing the government again, a move that backfired on him, but instead suggested he plans to declare a national emergency to build the wall. “I’ve set the table,” he said. “I’ve set the stage for doing what I’m going to do.”
Addressing a wide range of subjects, Mr. Trump brushed off the investigations that have consumed so much of his presidency, saying that his lawyers have been reassured by the departing deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, that the president himself was not a target. “He told the attorneys that I’m not a subject, I’m not a target,” Mr. Trump said.
But even if that is the case, it remains unknown whether the matter would be referred to the House for possible impeachment hearings.
Mr. Trump added that he never spoke with Roger J. Stone Jr., his longtime associate who was indicted last week, about WikiLeaks and the stolen Democratic emails it posted during the 2016 election, nor did he direct anyone to do so.
“No, I didn’t. I never did,” he said of speaking with Mr. Stone on the subject. Did he ever instruct anyone to get in touch with Mr. Stone about WikiLeaks? “Never did,” he repeated.
The president dismissed the importance of the proposed Trump Tower his team was seeking to build in Moscow at the height of the 2016 campaign, and he denied his own current lawyer’s account of how late in the campaign he was still discussing the project.
He also denied that his Twitter messages about former associates who are cooperating with prosecutors amount to witness tampering.
Mr. Trump said he played no role in directing White House officials to arrange for Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, to receive a top-secret clearance.
Mr. Kushner’s application was rejected at least once after concerns were raised by the F.B.I. about his foreign contacts. The C.I.A., which also raised concerns, has continued to deny him access to “sensitive compartmentalized information. READ MORE…
--02-02-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/factcheck/ap-fact-check-trump-distortions-on-the-wall-steel-climate/ar-BBT4K53?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP MORE LIES FROM DONALD; Go Figure…
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump claimed great progress in building the border wall even though it's no longer than before he took office. He dismissed the reality of global warming because of a fierce, passing cold spell. He described the steel industry as "totally revived" despite 20,000 job losses over the past decade.
A look at his recent rhetoric and the reality:
THE WALL
TRUMP: "The chant now should be 'finish the wall' as opposed to 'Build the Wall' because we're building a lot of wall. I started this six months ago — we really started going to town — because I could see we were going nowhere with the Democrats." — comments Friday.
TRUMP: "Large sections of WALL have already been built with much more either under construction or ready to go. Renovation of existing WALLS is also a very big part of the plan to finally, after many decades, properly Secure Our Border. The Wall is getting done one way or the other!" — tweet Thursday.
THE FACTS: Despite all his talk of progress, he's added no extra miles of barrier to the border to date. Construction is to start this month on a levee wall system in the Rio Grande Valley that will add 14 miles of barrier, the first lengthening in his presidency. That will be paid for as part of $1.4 billion approved by Congress last year.
Most work under contracts awarded by the Trump administration has been for replacement of existing barrier.
When Trump says large parts of the wall "have already been built," he's not acknowledging that previous administrations built those sections. Barriers currently extend for 654 miles (1,052 kilometers), or about one-third of the border. That construction was mostly done from 2006 to 2009.
___
STEEL INDUSTRY
TRUMP: "Tariffs on the 'dumping' of Steel in the United States have totally revived our Steel Industry. New and expanded plants are happening all over the U.S. We have not only saved this important industry, but created many jobs. Also, billions paid to our treasury. A BIG WIN FOR U.S." — tweet Monday.
THE FACTS: He's exaggerating the recovery of the steel industry, particularly when it comes to jobs.
In December, the steel industry employed 141,600 people, the Labor Department says in its latest data. Last March, when Trump said he would impose the tariffs, it was 139,400.
That's a gain of just 2,200 jobs during a period when the overall economy added nearly 2 million jobs. On a percentage basis, steel industry jobs grew 1.6 percent, barely higher than the 1.3 percent increase in all jobs.
Yet those figures still lag behind where they were before the 2008-2009 recession. When that downturn began, there were nearly 162,000 steelworkers.
Some companies have said they will add or expand plants. It's difficult to know just how many jobs will be added by newly planned mills.
But construction spending on factories has yet to take off significantly after having been in decline between 2016 and much of 2018. Construction spending on factories has been flat in the past year, according to the Census Bureau.
Trump's reference to "billions paid to our treasury" concerns money raised from tariffs on foreign steel and other products. Such tariffs are generally paid by U.S. importers, not foreign countries or companies, and the costs are often passed on to consumers. So that money going to the government is mostly coming from Americans.
___
VOTER FRAUD
TRUMP: "58,000 non-citizens voted in Texas, with 95,000 non-citizens registered to vote. These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. All over the country, especially in California, voter fraud is rampant. Must be stopped. Strong voter ID!" — tweet Jan. 27.
THE FACTS: That "iceberg" quickly began to melt as officials found serious problems with a report from the Texas secretary of state's office on voter fraud. More broadly, Trump is overstating the magnitude of such fraud across the U.S.
The Texas report suggested as many as 95,000 non-U.S. citizens may be on the state's voter rolls and as many as 58,000 may have cast a ballot at least once since 1996. Since it came out, however, state elections officials have been notifying county election chiefs of problems with the findings. Local officials told The Associated Press that they received calls from Texas Secretary of State David Whitley's office indicating that some citizens had been wrongly included in the original data.
So far no one on the lists has been confirmed as a noncitizen voter. Election officials in Texas' largest county say about 18,000 voters in the Houston area were wrongfully flagged as potentially ineligible to vote and those officials expect more such mistakes to be found on their list.
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Trump ally, acknowledged problems in the report, saying "many of these individuals may have been naturalized before registering and voting, which makes their conduct perfectly legal."
Early claims by other states of possible illegal voting on a rampant scale haven't held up.
When Florida began searching for noncitizens in 2012, for instance, state officials initially found 180,000 people suspected of being ineligible to vote when comparing databases of registered voters and driver's licenses. Florida officials later assembled a purge list of more than 2,600 names but that, too, was beset by inaccuracies. Eventually, a revised list of 198 names of possible noncitizens was produced through the use of a federal database.
In the U.S. overall, the actual number of fraud cases has been very small, and the type that voter IDs are designed to prevent — voter impersonation at the ballot box — is almost nonexistent. In court cases that have invalidated some ID laws as having discriminatory effects, election officials could barely cite a case in which a person was charged with in-person voting fraud.
___
JUDGES
TRUMP: "After all that I have done for the Military, our great Veterans, Judges (99), Justices (2) ... does anybody really think I won't build the WALL?" — tweet Jan. 27.
THE FACTS: He's boasting here about his record of getting federal judges and justices on the bench. But that record is not extraordinary. He also misstates the total number of judges who have been confirmed by the Senate — it's 85, not 99.
While Trump did successfully nominate two justices to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, during his first two years in office, four other modern presidents did the same — Democrats Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, and Republican Richard Nixon.
Trump, meanwhile, is surpassed in the number of confirmed justices by Warren Harding (four), William Taft (five), Abraham Lincoln (three) and George Washington (six), according to Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and expert on judicial appointments.
Trump's 85 total judicial appointees lag behind five former presidents at comparable points in office.
The five are George W. Bush, 99; Clinton, 128; Ronald Reagan, 88; Nixon, 91; and Kennedy, 111, according to Wheeler's analysis.
__
CLIMATE CHANGE
TRUMP: "In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded. In coming days, expected to get even colder. People can't last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Waming? [sic] Please come back fast, we need you!" — tweet Monday.
THE FACTS: Global warming does not need to make a comeback because it hasn't gone away. Extreme cold spells in parts of the globe do not signal a retreat.
Earth is considerably warmer than it was 30 years ago and especially 100 years ago. The lower 48 states make up only 1.6 percent of the globe, so what's happening there at any particular time is not a yardstick of the planet's climate. Even so, despite the brutal cold in the Midwest and East, five Western states are warmer than normal.
"This is simply an extreme weather event and not representative of global scale temperature trends," said Northern Illinois University climate scientist Victor Gensini. "The exact opposite is happening in Australia," which has been broiling with triple-digit heat that is setting records.
Trump's own administration released a scientific report last year saying that while human-caused climate change will reduce cold weather deaths "in 49 large cities in the United States, changes in extreme hot and extreme cold temperatures are projected to result in more than 9,000 additional premature deaths per year" by the end of this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at recent rates.
Trump routinely conflates weather and climate. Weather is like mood, which is fleeting. Climate is like personality, which is long term.
Associated Press writers Christopher Rugaber, Jill Colvin, Colleen Long and Seth Borenstein in Washington, Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
--01-27-19: www.cnbc.com/2019/01/27/trump-faulted-for-government-shutdown-nbc-wsj-poll.html
Americans fault Trump for chaotic government shutdown, as more believe US is 'on the wrong track': NBC-WSJ poll
•An NBC-Wall Street Journal poll showed that by 63 percent to 28 percent , a margin greater than two to one, Americans believe the country is "off on the wrong track" rather than "headed in the right direction."
•By a 50 percent to 37 percent margin, Americans blame President Donald Trump, rather than Democrats in Congress. READ MORE…
--AND 01-28-19: www.cnbc.com/2019/01/28/government-shutdown-cost-the-economy-11-billion-cbo.html
The government shutdown cost the economy $11 billion, including a permanent $3 billion loss, Congressional Budget Office say.
•The federal government shutdown cost the economy $11 billion, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
•Although most of the damage to the economy will be reversed as federal workers return to their jobs, the CBO estimated $3 billion in economic activity is permanently lost.
•Overall, the CBO projected economic growth will slow this year to 2.3 percent, compared with the 3.1 percent rate last year, as the benefits of the new tax law begin to fade. READ MORE…
--01-28-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-lawmaker-trump-can%e2%80%99t-claim-emergency-whenever-congress-doesn%e2%80%99t-legislate-the-way-he-wants%e2%80%99/ar-BBSRMdb?li=BBnb7Kz
Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) on Monday slammed the idea of President Trump declaring a national emergency to direct construction of a border wall, saying that Trump "can't claim emergency powers" when Congress doesn't the legislate the way he'd like.
"@potus can't claim emergency powers for non-emergency actions whenever Congress doesn't legislate the way he wants," Amash said on Twitter just hours after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) raised the prospect.
Graham tweeted earlier Monday that Trump "must" declare a national emergency for construction of a wall along the southern border if lawmakers are unable to reach a deal on border security next month. READ MORE…
--01-31-19: slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/01/trump-tweets-intel-coats-haspel.html Donald is NOT only STUPID/INCOMPETENT BUT ALSO DANGEROUS…Just AWFUL.
What must it be like to work in intelligence under Donald Trump? You delve as deeply as anyone into the area of your specialty, parse data from myriad sources (satellite imagery, communications intercepts, spies, open reports), weave your findings with those of 16 other agencies into carefully crafted reports.
Then, the president, the sole customer for your products, denounces you on Twitter as “extremely passive,” “naïve,” and “wrong!” (The exclamation point is his.)
That’s what Trump did Wednesday morning, the day after his top intelligence officials testified before Congress about a report that disputes his opinions on Iran, North Korea, Syria, and more.
Let’s be clear: U.S. intelligence agencies are far from infallible, they’ve been wrong many times in the past, and one of the distortions that the Age of Trump has spawned among the opposition is a romanticized worship of the wisdom and goodness of America’s spies.
But Trump’s latest Twitter jabs go beyond the pale. It would be one thing if he based his critique on conversations with outside experts, perusals of scholarly analyses, or events from his own experience.
But of course, he talks with no such oracles, reads nothing worthwhile, and has accumulated no life lessons of any relevance here.
Nor could the intelligence analysts’ findings be dismissed as fake news from the “deep state” or the “swamp.” The witnesses at Tuesday’s Senate hearing—Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel—were appointed to their jobs by Trump himself.
Trump clearly draws on very different sources of intelligence. Between his eruptions against Coats and Haspel on Wednesday morning came this tweet:
“Three separate caravans marching to our Border. The numbers are tremendous.” @foxandfriends
And:
“Our economy, right now, is the Gold Standard throughout the World.” @ingrahamangle So true, and not even close!
It is perpetually amazing, and alarming, that the president of the United States—who could consult the world’s leading experts, in or out of government, on every subject imaginable—chooses instead to rely on the random ravings of cable newscasters with no claim to special wisdom or inside knowledge on anything.
Trump went after his intelligence directors with such harsh defensiveness—unusually so, by even his standards—because their congressional testimony contradicted his well-known positions too blatantly for him to ignore.
For instance, Coats testified—reflecting the findings of a 42-page “Worldwide Threat Assessment,” a report that his agency releases to the public each year—that Iran has been abiding by the nuclear deal, which it signed with the U.S. and six other nations in 2015, and that it is not engaged in any activities that would be “necessary to produce a nuclear device.”
Trump, who pulled out the U.S. out of the accord last year, calling it one of the worst deals ever made, fired back with two tweets:
“The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naïve when it comes to the dangers of Iran They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond.
Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different… ….a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”
Actually, Iran’s behavior, good and bad, hasn’t changed in the slightest since Trump abrogated the deal, except for one thing:
As Haspel testified, the Iranian leaders are now “debating amongst themselves” whether to resume their nuclear program because “they’ve failed to realize the economic benefits they hoped for from the deal.”
In other words, according to the director of the CIA, the Iranians are thinking about breaking the deal because Trump has re-imposed the economic sanctions that had been lifted as part of the deal—i.e., they’re thinking about breaking the deal because Trump broke it.
On North Korea, Coats testified that though Kim Jong-un has suspended testing missiles and nuclear devices, he is “unlikely” to give up his nuclear weapons, mainly because he and the country’s other leaders “ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival.”
Haspel added that Kim is still “committed to developing a long-range nuclear-armed missile that would pose a direct threat to the United States.”
Trump—who has said that he and Kim “fell in love” at their summit in Singapore last June and who, immediately after the meeting, proclaimed that North Korea no longer posed a threat—tweeted back, at 3:40 a.m. (yes, 3:40 a.m.):
“Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen. Now a whole different story. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly. Progress being made-big difference!”
Time will tell, indeed. But according to officials familiar with the negotiations between U.S. and North Korean diplomats, no progress is being made whatsoever—in part because Kim thinks, with good reason, that he can pry more concessions from desperate-for-a-deal Trump directly.
This is why the North Koreans savor—and many of America’s Asian allies fear—the upcoming summit.
On ISIS, Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee that, though the jihadi group also known as Islamic State has lost almost all the territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria, it still has thousands of fighters who continue to “stoke violence” in those countries, as well as a dozen or so outlets throughout the world.
This was contrary to Trump’s claim—which he tweeted in December to justify his decision to withdraw all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria—that ISIS was defeated.
In response to Coats’ statement, Trump batted out this tweet at 3:25 a.m.:
“When I became President, ISIS was out of control in Syria & running rampant. Since then tremendous progress made, especially over last 5 weeks. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago.”
Three things are wrong here. First, Trump’s military campaign against ISIS was, in fact, a somewhat accelerated version of the campaign that President Obama had launched.
Second, though he has achieved progress, there’s been none since five weeks ago, which is when Trump announced the withdrawal.
In fact, perhaps because of that announcement, ISIS has stepped up its offensive operations, in one attack, on Jan 17, killing four Americans—as many as they had killed in Syria over the previous four years.
These observations amount to a finding that Trump’s policies are weakening America’s global position and strengthening that of its main rivals.
Finally, the intelligence directors said that Russian cyberoperations continue to threaten U.S. infrastructure and still pose a threat to U.S. elections—a fact that Trump has never accepted (though he ignored it in his early morning tweet storm).
In his written report, Coats leveled a still more serious critique of the president: “Some U.S. allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perceptions of changing U.S. policies on security and trade.”
The report also warned that Russia and China are pursuing common goals in a race for technological and military superiority—and that the two countries are more aligned than at any time since the mid-1950s.
Taken together, those observations amount to a finding that Trump’s policies are weakening America’s global position and strengthening that of its main rivals. Trump has not yet responded to this particular critique.
--01-29-19: www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/u-s-intel-agencies-russia-china-plotting-interfere-2020-election-n963896
U.S. intelligence agencies assess that Russia and China will seek to interfere in the 2020 presidential election, having learned lessons from Russia's operation in 2016, according to the annual public survey of national security threats issued Tuesday.
"We assess that foreign actors will view the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests," Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate intelligence committee at the worldwide threats hearing.
In another notable statement, Coats noted that U.S. intelligence agencies believe North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons because "its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival."
That view stands in stark contrast to comments from President Donald Trump, who in June declared that North Korea was "no longer a nuclear threat," citing his talks with leader Kim Jong Un.
Coats also refuted Trump's statement that ISIS has been defeated. He said the group was "nearing" military defeat in Iraq, but has returned to its "guerrilla warfare roots," continues to plot attacks and "still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria."
On political interference, the written assessment added that intelligence analysts expect American adversaries "to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other's experiences, suggesting the threat landscape could look very different in 2020 and future elections."
Political interference, using social media and cyber attacks, was scarcely mentioned in threat assessments before last year, but was listed second behind cyber attacks in Tuesday's array of the challenges facing U.S. national security policy-makers.
"Russia's social media efforts will continue to focus on aggravating social and racial tensions, undermining trust in authorities, and criticizing perceived anti-Russia politicians," says the written threats assessment.
"Moscow may employ additional influence toolkits—such as spreading disinformation, conducting hack-and- leak operations, or manipulating data—in a more targeted fashion to influence US policy, actions, and elections."
China and Iran may also seek to influence American politics, the assessment said. And China and Russia are working together as never before in recent history.
"China and Russia are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s, and the relationship is likely to strengthen in the coming year as some of their interests and threat perceptions converge, particularly regarding perceived US unilateralism and interventionism and Western promotion of democratic values and human rights," the assessment says.
--02-01-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-scam-accusers-say-his-kids-had-key-role-in-duping-clients/ar-BBT1lqs?li=BBnb7Kz
Donald Trump’s three eldest children were deeply involved in their father’s alleged scheme to rip off tens of thousands of Americans with bogus marketing opportunities in the years before he was elected president, according to a revised lawsuit by four would-be entrepreneurs.
The group, which sued in October, filed an amended complaint Thursday that expanded claims that Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump systematically defrauded people who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each to work with a marketing firm they endorsed called ACN Inc.
ACN allegedly promised business opportunities with little risk and was widely promoted on Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” television show.
The Trump children did more than just lend their names to ACN, the amended lawsuit says. The siblings appeared repeatedly with ACN co-founders on their father’s TV show, as well as in photographs, social-media posts and other materials, according to the plaintiffs, who seek to remain anonymous to avoid a backlash from Trump.
From 2005 to at least 2015, the Trump family received millions of dollars in secret payments to promote ACN to people who hoped to get rich selling its products, according to the lawsuit. ACN’s flagship product was a “doomed” desktop video phone that could connect calls only between two ACN customers and was quickly eclipsed by services like Skype and the advent of smartphones.
The alleged scheme to boost ACN’s dubious value in the eyes of consumers was made possible by Trump’s rehabilitation of his image on "Celebrity Apprentice," according to the suit.
Trump’s children understood the power of the show’s success and used it to help a company that ripped off customers, the former ACN investors said in their complaint. READ MORE…
--01-29-19: slate.com/technology/2019/01/trump-climate-change-tweet-wind-chill-midwest-dumb.html
WHAT A IDIOT DONALD IS…
Donald J. Trump
✔ @realdonaldtrump
In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded. In coming days, expected to get even colder. People can’t last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Waming? Please come back fast, we need you!
Where to begin. Let’s set aside the fact that wind chill is a meaningless way to assess cold weather; I don’t actually expect Trump to know that.
We can also ignore the fact that he misspelled warming. The obvious thing to focus on is that he once again said something mind-numbingly incorrect about climate change.
Except, we don’t have to focus on that, either, because Trump tweeted something similarly idiotic last week, too. (He managed to spell warming right that time.)
That tweet kicked off a round of patient fact-checks explaining for the one-zillionth time that climate and weather are different, that cold weather will continue to happen even as the planet warms, and that, in fact, it might get even colder in some places sometimes thanks to climate change.
As Trump himself said in last week’s tweet, it’s “amazing how big this system is.”
This news cycle has been happening on repeat at least since Sen. Jim Inhofe brought a snowball to the Senate floor, and we’ve been debunking it carefully each time.
If you haven’t read enough explanations of the difference between weather and climate to understand why the cold doesn’t disprove climate change, I’d recommend Kendra Pierre-Louis’s version in the New York Times from last week.
The sad thing about this tweet isn’t even the deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
That’s par for the course from the only world leader who doesn’t accept the science on climate change.
It’s the tone of it that grates—the taunt inherent to “please come back fast, we need you!” In the midst of constant chaos and tragedy and stupidity, it is easy to forget that one of the greatest costs of the Trump presidency is the opportunity cost—the loss of these four years in which we could have been taking action on one of the most serious threats facing humanity and instead walked backward.
This tweet is frustrating not only because it’s wrong—it’s frustrating because it is cruel. People are already dying from global warming. The longer we wait, the worse it will get. But to the president, it’s just a punchline.
--01-28-19: www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-28/trump-economy-lags-clinton-s-obama-s-reagan-s-and-even-carter-s?srnd=premium
Investors may be gloomy about the vanishing gap between short- and long-term U.S. Treasury yields, the dreaded yield-curve inversion that tends to forecast recessions, but the president is focusing on the bright side.
The U.S. economy is indeed doing well in many ways. Job gains and consumer spending are robust, wages are rising, inflation isn’t a problem. Things have slowed down lately and optimism has waned a bit, but the conventional economic indicators have been strong.
In Trump’s view, that entitles him to claim that his administration has produced “the strongest economy in the history of our nation,” as he put it last June.
But while the recession forecasts have not been proven right, Trump’s boast can pretty much be proven wrong.
Measured by 14 gauges of economic activity and financial performance, the U.S. economy is not doing as well under Trump as it did under all but one of the four Republicans and three Democrats who have occupied the White House since 1976.
These yardsticks, compiled by Bloomberg, assess a broad range of activity — from job and wage growth to the strength of the real estate and auto industries to the health of stock and bond investments that deliver security to workers and retirees alike. They are:
Total nonfarm payrolls
Manufacturing jobs
Value of the dollar compared to major currencies
Gross domestic product
Federal budget deficit (or surplus) as a percentage of GDP
Disposable income per capita
Household debt as a percentage of disposable income
Home equity
Car sales
Hourly wages
Productivity
Bond-market performance
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. stocks
Gap between U.S. and global stock performance
By compiling and ranking the annual improvement in these measures under each of the last seven presidents, an average economic-progress score can be assigned.
The scoring gives equal weight to each measure to avoid confusion over valuations that anyone could consider arbitrary.
By these measures, we reported two years ago, the economy under President Bill Clinton was No. 1. It still is, having strengthened the most during his years in office, 1993 to 2001.
President Barack Obama, who took office in 2009 during the worst recession since the Great Depression, left in 2017 after the second-biggest improvement. President Ronald Reagan is No. 3 (1981-1989), followed by Presidents George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) and Jimmy Carter (1977-1981).
That leaves Trump and President George W. Bush, whose years in office ended in 2009 with the financial crisis that plunged the economy into its deepest decline in 80 years.
While the No. 6 Trump economy shows no signs of replicating the disaster of the No. 7 Bush economy, he already lags Carter’s performance. READ MORE…
--01-29-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bullying-journalists-is-not-presidential-fox-news-anchor-berates-trump-for-tweet/ar-BBSTjU2?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP Donald’s constant ATTACKS on OUR Press is not only getting OLD; but is also a THREAT to our Democracy. NOW, he has being attacking FOX…
WASHINGTON — After President Donald Trump leveled a rare Twitter attack against Fox News — a network he normally praises for its favorable coverage of him — one of the conservative channel's anchors lambasted the president for "bullying journalists."
Fox News anchor Julie Banderas was outraged after Trump posted a tweet Sunday night complaining about her network's coverage of the fallout from the 35-day partial government shutdown and the negotiations for border wall funding.
"Never thought I’d say this but I think @johnrobertsfox and @gillianhturner @foxnews have even less understanding of the Wall negotiations than the folks at FAKE NEWS CNN & NBC!" Trump tweeted.
"@realdonaldtrump This is NOT right. I stand by my colleagues @johnrobertsfox and @gillianhturner They don’t deserve this.
No reporter does. They are doing their jobs and reporting the facts. They are not opinion journalists and deserve the respect from the @whitehouse they cover," Banderas said in a reply to the president's tweet. READ MORE…
--01-29-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/stephen-miller-said-hed-be-happy-with-no-refugees/ar-BBSRVSu?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=U147DHP
Donald Trump’s senior policy adviser Stephen Miller reportedly once told former White House communications aide Cliff Sims that he would be content if “not a single” refugee ever entered the United States again.
“I would be happy if not a single refugee foot ever again touched American soil,” Miller is quoted as saying in Sims’s new book, titled Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House.
When asked about Miller's quote during a press briefing on Monday afternoon, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she is "not aware of any statement like that that Stephen Miller has ever made, and it's certainly not the policy of the administration."
Sims also described how many members of the Trump administration, including Miller, would dismiss the successes of immigrants while “going out of their way to vilify all immigrants with stories of the bad apples.”
“Any time a refugee or immigrant committed a gruesome crime in the United States, for example, Stephen Miller would come down to the [communications] office demanding a press release about it,” Sims wrote.
Miller has taken a hardline immigration stance during his time with the Trump administration, orchestrating some of the president’s more controversial policies.
He is known for being influential in the administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration approach that led to thousands of families being separated at the southern border. Miller has also focused a lot of energy on limiting the amount of refugees admitted into the country.
Miller’s policies have faced public scrutiny, even from his own family and friends. The adviser’s childhood rabbi, Neil Comess-Daniels, once said that Miller “set back the Jewish contribution to making the world spiritually whole through [his] arbitrary division of these desperate people.”
Miller’s uncle, David Glosser, wrote an op-ed in Politico last summer blasting the adviser as an “immigration hypocrite.” Glosser added that he has “watched with dismay and increasing horror as my nephew, an educated man who is well aware of his heritage, has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family’s life in this country.”
Sims’s book is the latest look behind the curtain of the Trump presidency, with the former communications aide describing the administration as “absolutely out of control.”
In one excerpt, Sims described White House counselor Kellyanne Conway as a “cartoon villain brought to life.”
Sims claimed Conway consistently leaked information to reporters, though she responded to the allegation by saying that she prefers to “knife people from the front, so they see it coming.”
Elsewhere in the book, Sims described the president’s obsession with television news coverage.
The former staffer claimed that Trump often bragged about how many televisions were in the West Wing and once even requested a positive New York Times article be framed in gold and hung up in the White House. READ MORE…
--01-28-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/devos-proposal-on-sexual-assault-draws-wave-of-personal-attacks/ar-BBSPTma?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ proposal to change rules for how schools handle sexual assault allegations has turned the federal site for collecting public comments into a cauldron of anger and obscenity.
DeVos, one of President Donald Trump’s few remaining original cabinet secretaries, has not become embroiled in any administration scandals during her two years running the Education Department, but she remains enemy No. 1 one for many teachers and activists.
The comments reflect not only the divisiveness and emotion surrounding assault investigations but how anything DeVos touches can spark hostility.
“F--- you Betsy,” reads one comment.
"DeVos is a traitor to women everywhere," another wrote. One chimed in with: "Ms DeVos: for the good of ALL women: PLEASE RESIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
As of Friday, there were nearly 72,000 comments on the Education Department’s proposed rule. The proposal is controversial, viewed by critics as DeVos doing President Donald Trump's bidding to protect sexual harassers, pointing to such accusations against the president.
The comments are peppered with references to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose nomination was nearly tanked by sexual assault allegations.
The administration has touted its plan for Title IX as a historic move that will for the first time create formal regulations — through a notice-and-comment process — for schools responding to sexual harassment claims. DeVos has said her focus is on "ensuring that every student can learn in a safe and nurturing environment."
Many comments on the Title IX regulation are from survivors of sexual assault, detailing their personal experiences and explaining why they believe DeVos' proposal on Title IX would make it more difficult for others like them to seek justice.
“In particular, I am concerned about the rule saying that survivors must talk to specific employees and if they do not go to the certain employees about what they went through, then the school does not have to take action on the issue,” wrote one commenter, who said she is a student survivor.
“If this is enacted then it can be very difficult for survivors to get the help and justice that they deserve.
Being able to talk to someone that one is comfortable with is very important, and by adding these unnecessary obstacles it makes it very difficult for victims to receive the help they need.” READ MORE…
--01-27-19: www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/democrats-race-black-vote-it-could-decide-everything-n963156
Democrats' race for the black vote is on. It could decide everything.
... But the setting and Harris' personal connection to the "Divine Nine" of black fraternities and sororities also showcased one reason the senator is seen as a top contender in the Democratic race.
She has an opportunity to make a strong pitch to black voters, a group that was decisive in both President Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's primary victories and is critical to Democratic hopes of retaking the White House.
In both cases, the eventual nominee won decisively in South Carolina, where 61 percent of the 2016 primary electorate was black, according to exit polls, and then carried their momentum into victories across the south.
Black women, who turned out in greater numbers, played an outsized role in the results.
"Across the country we know it's a very powerful bloc," Harris told reporters on Friday when asked about the impact of black women on the race.
"We know that, even in the Senate Democratic caucus meetings, there are people who have been elected such as (Alabama senator) Doug Jones who…understand the power of black women to elect candidates and to be a very powerful voice of leadership in the community, equal to everyone else."
The campaign sees their support as a critical to victory. South Carolina is the fourth scheduled primary contest in 2020 and both Obama and Clinton used it to bounce back from losses in New Hampshire, where the electorate is overwhelmingly white.
That momentum is especially important for Harris, since her home state of California and eight others vote days later on Super Tuesday.
Her initial campaign rollout has underscored their importance at every turn. She announced her run on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, held her first press event at Howard, and debuted a logo that paid homage to the late Shirley Chisholm's 1972 presidential run, the first major party campaign by an African-American candidate.
"She recognizes black women are the absolute key voters to win over and it's a crowded field," said Aimee Allison, whose organization She The People is hosting a candidate forum in April to address issues facing women of color.
The group released a straw poll of activists last month that named Harris the most popular candidate.
The daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, Harris' roots in the African-American community were a key theme of her recent memoir. In the book, "The Truths We Hold:
An American Journey," Harris describes how her mother, who assumed primary parenting duties after a divorce, immersed the family in civil rights activism and took them to a predominantly black church on Sundays.
"My mother used to say, 'You may be the first to do many things, make sure you're not the last,'" Harris said after being asked about being the first AKA member to run for president. "It's about bringing people up." READ MORE…
--01-28-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-says-%e2%80%98fake-news%e2%80%99-cnn-is-better-than-fox-news-at-this-one-thing/ar-BBSPzsy?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP If Donald was like a Dictator (???) Like in Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, etc. MOST of the reporters in America would be in jail or at re-education camps…
President Donald Trump took to Twitter to voice his displeasure with reporters who work for right-leaning Fox News Sunday and said he thought CNN and MSNBC understood his “Wall negotiations” better.
“Never thought I’d say this but I think [John Roberts] and [Gillian Turner] [Fox News] have even less understanding of the Wall negotiations than the folks at FAKE NEWS CNN [and] NBC! Look to final results! Don’t know how my poll numbers are so good, especially up 19% with Hispanics?” Trump wrote Sunday.
“After all that I have done for the Military, our great Veterans, Judges (99), Justices (2), Tax & Regulation Cuts, the Economy, Energy, Trade [and] MUCH MORE, does anybody really think I won’t build the WALL?
Done more in first two years than any President! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump added minutes later. READ MORE…
--01-27-19: www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-government-shutdown-not-vacation-federal-workers-my-husband-ncna962741
... Well Secretary Ross, my husband is a furloughed USDA employee. We are a single-income family. And let me tell you, we are neither on a vacation nor suffering just a “a little bit of pain.”
With our leaders in Washington — not to mention some of our neighbors — seemingly so confused about the actual toll of the longest shutdown in American history, I thought it might be worthwhile to clear the air.
First, let’s address this idea that being forced to stop working equates to being on vacation.
There is nothing we love to do more on vacation than eat.
Now, our family doesn’t eat fast food, even if we’re desperate. We like seafood. We love sushi. And the more desserts, the better! Once every year or two, we may even splurge and visit a Brazilian steakhouse. For us, it’s all about the food!
This week, in the best imitation of fine dining our budget could provide, I served potato soup for supper.
Six potatoes. Water. Salt. And a single can of evaporated milk. The total cost was less than $3 to feed five people.
It filled our hungry tummies when supplemented with saltine crackers. But the satisfaction was as minimal as the cost.
First, let’s address this idea that being forced to stop working equates to being on vacation.
On vacation, we might drive around — maybe explore a new museum or go to a rock concert. There is nothing better than listening to Jimmy Buffet while sitting in the grass in Atlanta.
Planning and budgeting are critical so you can maximize the fun for the money available.
Last night, we sat on the floor and played “Go Fish” in front of our darkened television set. Streaming services and cable cost money. We wear sweaters inside because we’ve turned down the heat to 62° to save on the substantive winter heating bills brought on by bitter Iowa winters.
And we all try not to feel claustrophobic. Usually in winter, when patience wears thin and the weather makes playing outside impossible, we might go window shop at the mall. Or go play racquetball at the YMCA.
But we live miles out in the country and gas is too precious right now to waste on such frivolous enterprises.
The suggestion those of us missing paychecks should just get a loan or use a credit card is egregiously disconnected from the financial realities of life for most Americans. We use our credit cards every month and pay them off almost every month.
But with Christmas just behind us, the credit card balances were already riding high when the shutdown started.
At least the credit card companies are working with us as far as letting us skip payments and adjusting late fees. But while some banks are helping with stop-gap loans for affected employees, not all banks are.
The idea that our government is so unreliable that employees should anticipate needing bridge loans to make ends meet is incredibly discouraging. And yet, if this drags on into spring, we will have to look for such a loan ourselves.
The suggestion those of us missing paychecks should just get a loan or use a credit card is egregiously disconnected from the financial realities of life for most Americans.
On social media, people are starting to call us entitled. The simple expectation of job security is not entitlement. On the news, one genuinely entitled person, Lara Trump, implied we should just take one for the team.
This rising lack of sympathy is worrisome. Worse, we are utterly lost as to what “team” we are supposed to be taking one for. Federal employees don’t have a team.
Despite efforts to paint us as mostly Democrats, there is no partisan bias or requirement for the hundreds of thousands of people currently affected by this shutdown.
There are no questions relating to party affiliation on the work application or in the security questionnaires. In fact, the only truly partisan members of the government, Congress, are still getting paid.
We, the affected, worried, hungry, scared and increasingly desperate federal workers are a tremendously diverse group of people from all socioeconomic, religious, and political backgrounds.
We share only one simple, singular belief: that our service to this nation matters. READ MORE…
--01-28-19: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-28/wto-is-said-to-launch-investigation-into-trump-s-china-tariffs?srnd=premium
The World Trade Organization launched an investigation into President Donald Trump’s tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods, ratcheting up tensions as the two nations are set to begin a new round of trade talks, according to an official with knowledge of the probe.
The Geneva-based arbiter of trade disputes on Monday began an inquiry into whether the U.S. duties run afoul of a requirement that all WTO members give each other the same tariff treatment, as China asserts, said the official, who asked not to be identified because the decision hasn’t been made public.
The WTO will now assign a panel to begin the investigation.
The investigation comes at a delicate moment between the world’s two largest economies. A new round of trade talks is scheduled to begin on Jan. 30, and if a deal isn’t reached by March 1, the Trump administration has threatened to raise the tariff rate on $200 billion in Chinese goods to 25 percent from 10 percent.
“This WTO case is especially significant because it deals with the central international legal issue in the U.S. conduct of its trade war with China,” James Bacchus, a former Democratic congressman and onetime head of the WTO’s appellate body, said in an email.
“I believe these U.S. tariffs are inconsistent with WTO obligations, but it will be left to my successors on the WTO appellate body to decide.” READ MORE…
--01-29-19: www.huffingtonpost.com.mx/entry/trump-texas-voter-fraud_us_5c4dceb4e4b06ba6d3be02e8?ec_carp=6027286301295473053
President Donald Trump on Sunday gave credence to incomplete and possibly inaccurate information about the extent of voter fraud in Texas, marking the latest in a series of misleading and false statements he has made on the topic of voting irregularities.
In a call for voter identification laws ― which Texas already has ― Trump tweeted that 95,000 non-citizens were on the voter rolls in Texas, 58,000 of whom had voted in at least one election in the state.
Trump based his tweet on a statement released Friday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R).
But what Texas officials actually found is far less certain, The Texas Tribune reported.
The secretary of state’s office in a Friday memo said it had identified 95,000 people on voter rolls that it suspects are non-citizens and sent the names to county officials to probe further.
The state flagged the 95,000 by matching data from people who at one time had been documented as legal permanent residents against the state’s voter registration database.
But what remains unclear is how many of those residents may now be citizens or if all the matches are accurate.
Beth Stevens, voting rights legal director at the Texas Civil Rights Project, questioned the accuracy of the memo from the secretary of state’s office.
Stevens said about 50,000 Texans became naturalized citizens each year and it was “highly suspect” that the memo took that into account.
“There is no credible data that indicates illegal voting is happening in any significant numbers, and the secretary’s statement does not change that fact,” she said.
Stevens expressed concerns that the memo could “result in tens of thousands of eligible voters being removed from the rolls, including those with the least resources to comply with the demand to show papers.”
Keith Ingram, the state’s director of elections, wrote in the memo that the information on the number of non-citizens on voting rolls should be treated as “WEAK” matches, meaning county officials need to further investigate the cases.
Ingram also said counties could not cancel any of the suspected non-citizen voter registrations without first mailing them a notice giving them 30 days to prove their citizenship.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly made misleading and inaccurate statements about voter fraud.
Among the 95,000 registered voters who may be non-citizens, the number state officials said actually cast ballots in at least one election — 58,000 — also lacks context.
The Texas Tribune reported the number covers elections from 1996-2018, a 22-year time span Paxton did not mention in his statement.
There are nearly 15.8 million registered voters in Texas, over 8.3 million of whom voted in the 2018 general election.
Last year, Paxton created a unit in his office focused on targeting election crimes.
So far, the unit has prosecuted 33 people.
Among them is Rosa Maria Ortega, a legal permanent resident who was sentenced to 8 years in prison for illegally voting.
Ortega, who faces likely deportation, said she made a mistake and had no idea she was ineligible to vote.
“It is also no surprise that the attorney general tweeted about this announcement using alarmist language that is clearly intended to advance a false political narrative to further restrict access to the ballot box,” Stevens said in her statement. READ MORE…
01-29-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/chris-christie-explains-his-legal-advice-to-trump-keep-quiet/ar-BBSTLAs?li=BBnb7Kz
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had some simple advice for President Donald Trump about the ongoing Russia investigation: Keep quiet.
Trump, however, has ignored him, Christie said Tuesday.
Christie spoke with MSNBC's "Morning Joe" as he promotes his new book, "Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics."
He was asked by co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough about his advice to Trump on how to handle special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials.
Christie said he told Trump not to "be fooled" by what his "C-level legal team" was telling him about the investigation wrapping up promptly.
Christie, a former federal prosecutor, said he's known Mueller for years and insisted the probe would take "a long time."
"There's no way you can make this investigation shorter, but there's lots of ways you can (make) it longer," Christie recalled telling Trump.
"And the way you can do that is to keep talking about it and tweeting about it, because every time you do that, prosecutors say, 'Great, more things for us to chase down.'"
"I can tell you that I must have said this to him two dozen times over the last two years: 'You need to stop, you're making this worse,'" he added.
Christie said Trump was ignoring his advice even though he knows it's "good."
Christie, a Republican and a Trump ally, was asked why Trump keeps taking advice from his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, with whom Christie has had a fraught history dating to Christie's days as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey, when he sent Kushner's father to prison on tax evasion and other charges.
"I don't know, makes no sense to me," he said. AND 01-29-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/chris-christie-shreds-jared-kushners-father-one-of-the-most-loathsome-disgusting-crimes-that-i-prosecuted/ar-BBSVspG?li=BBnb7Kz
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie shredded Jared Kushner’s father — who he once prosecuted for tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and witness tampering — during a segment on PBS’s Firing Line With Margaret Hoover on Tuesday.
“I want to talk about Jared Kushner, because, frankly, it comes down to ... he’s the one who fired you,” Hoover said during the interview, before Christie responded: “That’s what Steve Bannon told me, yes.”
“You believe that because there’s history between the two of you,” the public affairs show host continued.
“Between me and his father, not between me and him,” Christie, who served as the 55th Governor of New Jersey between 2010 and 2018, clarified.
“Would you separate your experience if your father had been put in jail from the prosecutor who put him in jail?” Hoover pressed, referring to the fact that Christie was the former U.S. Attorney who put billionaire real estate developer Charles Kushner behind bars in the mid-2000s.
Christie responded: “If my father was guilty, I would. Mr. Kushner pled guilty. He admitted the crimes. And so what am I supposed to do as a prosecutor?
I mean, if a guy hires a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law and videotapes it, and then sends the videotape to his sister, to attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury, do I really need any more justification than that?”
“I mean, it’s one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was U.S. Attorney. And I was U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, Margaret, so we had some loathsome and disgusting crime going on there,” he added. READ MORE…
--01-31-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/newsus/trump-administration-secretly-shipped-plutonium-to-nevada/ar-BBSYlBC?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP
The Department of Energy (DOE) secretly shipped about a half-ton of weapons-grade radioactive plutonium to Nevada despite the state's opposition.
The Trump administration made the disclosure Wednesday as part of a federal court case in Nevada in which the state is trying to block the DOE from its publicly stated plans to ship radioactive materials from South Carolina.
"Because sufficient time has now elapsed after conclusion of this campaign, DOE may now publicly state that it has completed all shipment of plutonium (approximately ½ metric ton) to Nevada," Bruce Diamond, general counsel for the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, wrote in a court declaration, noting that the action was previously classified.
"Although the precise date that this occurred cannot be revealed for reasons of operational security, it can be stated that this was done before November 2018, prior to the initiation of the litigation."
Diamond did not disclose the route the material took, although the DOE previously said it would be moved in special containers with lead radiation shields, among other precautions, carried on trucks.
The plutonium went to the Nevada National Security Site, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Nevada sued the DOE that month to stop the shipments, arguing that the agency had not properly considered the environmental impacts of shipping the materials. The agency's plan is to move a total of one ton of material to the Nevada site.
Nevada officials were angered by the disclosure and pledged to hold the Trump administration accountable.
"I am beyond outraged by this completely unacceptable deception from the U.S. Department of Energy," Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) said in a statement.
The department led the State of Nevada to believe that they were engaging in good-faith negotiations with us regarding a potential shipment of weapons-grade plutonium, only to reveal that those negotiations were a sham all along.
They lied to the State of Nevada, misled a federal court, and jeopardized the safety of Nevada's families and environment," he said.
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) called the move "deceitful and unethical," and said it jeopardized "the health and safety of thousands of Nevadans and Americans who live in close proximity to shipment routes."
--01-30-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/were-getting-soft-kentucky-governor-says-america-is-weak-for-closing-schools-as-a-deadly-arctic-deep-freeze-wreaks-havoc-with-record-breaking-low-temperatures/ar-BBSXzv2?li=BBnb7Kz
Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin has criticized schools for closing as a deadly arctic deep freeze wreaks havoc on tens of millions across the United States as they are hit with record-breaking low temperatures.
Hundreds of public schools and several large universities from North Dakota to Pennsylvania canceled classes on Tuesday and Wednesday due to the dangerous temperatures.
Bevin, in an interview with NewsRadio 840 WHAS , said America was weak because of it.
'Now we cancel school for cold?' he told host Terry Meiners on Tuesday.
Bevin hit back: 'Come on, now. I mean, there's no ice going with it, or any snow.
'I mean, what happens to America? We're getting soft.'
The governor added that he did 'appreciate that it's better to err on the side of being safe' and admitted that his comments were 'slightly facetious'.
He then doubled down, saying: 'It does concern me a little bit that in America, on this and many other fronts, that we're sending messages to our young people that if life is hard you can curl up in the fetal position somewhere in a warm place and just wait until it stops being hard... that just isn't reality.' READ MORE…
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