American Politics Thread: Orange is the new POTUS

[flylock shox]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/31/news...ump/index.html

If Tre acts now, we might be able to get Musk from Washington for Brouwer and a pick or prospect. Klimchuk maybe?

[Senator Clay Davis]

With over 200,000 likes, how did you all miss this? I was occupied most of the day otherwise I would have posted this a while ago. Whoever runs this account cannot be paid enough, one of the better accounts for consistently making quality tweets.



https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster

[photon]

Sasse had a pretty good one, he was live tweeting his daughter's piano recital.

[FlameOn]

Sessions is being investigated for another undisclosed meeting with Russian ambassador Kislyak. Investigators say that the failure to disclose this meeting under oath may constitute perjury.

Congressional investigators are examining whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions had an additional private meeting with Russia's ambassador during the presidential campaign, according to Republican and Democratic Hill sources and intelligence officials briefed on the investigation.

Investigators on the Hill are requesting additional information, including schedules from Sessions, a source with knowledge tells CNN. They are focusing on whether such a meeting took place April 27, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, where then-candidate Donald Trump was delivering his first major foreign policy address. Prior to the speech, then-Sen. Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak attended a small VIP reception with organizers, diplomats and others.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/politi...ing/index.html

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Sessions is being investigated for another undisclosed meeting with Russian ambassador Kislyak. Investigators say that the failure to disclose this meeting under oath may constitute perjury.


http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/politi...ing/index.html

It's also a violation of the SF86 background process, which is a felony as covered under Title 18, Section 1001, which constitutes penalties of up to five years in prison and fines, per incident. So far Sessions has not disclosed at least four contacts with Kislyak. Mr. Sessions should be in prison and facing an espionage investigation.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by New Era

It's also a violation of the SF86 background process, which is a felony as covered under Title 18, Section 1001, which constitutes penalties of up to five years in prison and fines, per incident. So far Sessions has not disclosed at least four contacts with Kislyak. Mr. Sessions should be in prison and facing an espionage investigation.

He can be impeached as well if he perjured himself before being prosecuted.

In other news Trump just returned some Russian diplomatic compounds that were seized by American authorities because of the compounds were being used for Russian Intelligence Operation on US soil. Trump isn't even trying to hide where his true allegiances lie anymore.

The Trump administration is moving toward handing back to Russia two diplomatic compounds, near New York City and on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, that its officials were ejected from in late December as punishment for Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

President Barack Obama said Dec. 29 that the compounds were being “used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes” and gave Russia 24 hours to vacate them. Separately, Obama expelled from the United States what he said were 35 Russian “intelligence operatives.”

Early last month, the Trump administration told the Russians that it would consider turning the properties back over to them if Moscow would lift its freeze, imposed in 2014 in retaliation for U.S. sanctions related to Ukraine, on construction of a new U.S. consulate on a certain parcel of land in St. Petersburg.

Two days later, the U.S. position changed. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at a meeting in Washington that the United States had dropped any linkage between the compounds and the consulate, according to several people with knowledge of the exchanges.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.2e972c623086

[FlameOn]

Trump exempts the most of the White House senior staff, including Steve Bannon, from ethics regulations that govern conflicts of interest. Hm... how can any of his supporters view this as remotely good governance? The WH is spinning the exemption as "part of the president's promise to drain the swamp" Wtf??

The White House disclosed Wednesday evening that it has granted ethics waivers to 17 specific appointees who work for President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, including four former lobbyists.

The waivers exempt the appointees from certain portions of ethics rules aimed at barring potential conflicts of interest. In letters posted on the White House website, the White House counsel's office wrote that the waivers were in the public interest because the administration had a need for the appointees' expertise on certain issues.

Among the high-profile figures who received waivers: White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, who were both permitted to engage with their former employer or clients. In addition, a blanket waiver was given to all executive office appointees to interact with news organisations — a move that gives senior strategist Stephen Bannon permission to communicate with Breitbart News, the conservative website he used to run.

The waiver information - which was requested of all federal agencies by the Office of Government Ethics in April - provides a window into how far the Trump administration is willing to bend on its “drain the swamp” pledge. As a candidate, Trump vowed to take a hard line on lobbyists, which he promised would not shape his administration.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7766301.html

[photon]

They haven't handed the compounds back yet, it looks like they're talking about doing it to see what the reaction is. If they can return those compounds without a negative reaction from their base then they can consider easing the sanctions... Which if they do certainly does appear to support some sort of collusion.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Trump exempts the most of the White House senior staff, including Steve Bannon, from ethics regulations that govern conflicts of interest. Hm... how can any of his supporters view this as remotely good governance? The WH is spinning the exemption as "part of the president's promise to drain the swamp" Wtf??

You'd have to be a moron to still believe trump is draining the swamp.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

You'd have to be a moron to still believe trump is draining the swamp.

According to Kushner, "Donald Trump lies to his base because he thinks they're stupid". Given that he still has a large supporter base, Trump is not wrong.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

According to Kushner, "Donald Trump lies to his base because he thinks they're stupid". Given that he still has a large supporter base, Trump is not wrong.

[photon]

Trump not continuing the tradition of making a proclamation about Pride Month (June). But he held up a rainbow flag during the campaign!!

[FlameOn]

Putin not-so-subtly taunting the US by releasing a statement that admits "Patriotically minded private Russian hackers" had a hand meddling in the US election. How very Putin of him to not publicly say anything but he still wants to know who was responsible.

He has done this so many times now, his ego will not allow him to keep quiet about his deeds forever. "There are no Russians in Ukraine"... then "Russian soldiers were just taking a vacation in Ukraine with all their equipment". "Such a tragedy that my main political rival was gunned down right outside the Kremlin. These lawless killers will be brought to justice. ". "Those two bullets in the back of my rivals head is 100% suicide"

Shifting from his previous blanket denials, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Thursday that “patriotically minded” private Russian hackers could have been involved in cyberattacks last year to help the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.

While Mr. Putin continued to deny any state role, his comments to reporters in St. Petersburg were a departure from the Kremlin’s previous position: that Russia had played no role whatsoever in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and that, after Mr. Trump’s victory, the country had become the victim of anti-Russia hysteria among crestfallen Democrats.

Raising the possibility of attacks by what he portrayed as free-spirited Russian patriots, Mr. Putin said that hackers “are like artists” who choose their targets depending how they feel “when they wake up in the morning.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/w...=Homepage&_r=1

[Thor]

Originally Posted by troutman

Sadly untrue.

http://www.snopes.com/1998-trump-people-quote/

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Thor

Sadly untrue.

http://www.snopes.com/1998-trump-people-quote/

I wondered, because Fox was not so prevalent in 1998.

[Street Pharmacist]

nm

[Street Pharmacist]

He did take help this full page ad urging climate change action in 2009 though:

Spoiler!

[peter12]

Love that "african poverb" at the end there.

[FlameOn]

Leader of the DOJ's Enron investigation joins Special Prosecutor Meuller's investigation amid reports that senators had previously asked then FBI director Comey to investigate Jeff Sessions for perjury. If Sessions was aware of the request to Comey, he will likely face obstruction of justice charges himself now along with Trump and Kushner.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is bolstering his team of U.S. investigators probing possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, adding a top Justice Department official who’s been overseeing corporate fraud and foreign-bribery investigations, as well as a former law-firm colleague, according to people familiar with the matter.

Justice Department fraud chief Andrew Weissmann is the most senior government lawyer to join Mueller, the former Federal Bureau of Investigation director who became special counsel on May 17, said two people, who asked not to be named discussing a personnel matter that hasn’t been made public.

Mueller also recently brought on Jeannie Rhee, according to two people. Rhee, a partner in the investigations practice at his former law firm, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP, previously worked in a Justice Department office that gives legal advice to the White House.

Weissmann and Rhee join a growing team that includes Peter Carr, a veteran spokesman for the Justice Department who will deal with the news media, and two former Wilmer partners, Aaron Zebley and James Quarles.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...sia-probe-team
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/01/politi....html?adkey=bn

[HotHotHeat]

Originally Posted by peter12

Love that "african poverb" at the end there.

???