Right now Mueller's biggest problem is probably dealing with the likelihood of pardons. Hard to get anyone to cooperate when Trump is sending out signals he'll pardon anyone for anything. At the same time, once someone accepts a pardon for a crime, they can no longer plead the fifth on that crime. But the only repercussion for someone refusing to cooperate at that point would be contempt charges. Which Trump could also pardon. But if they can find charges that fit better at a state level and then have those prosecuted by a state AG, that is a pardon-proof line of attack.
Trump can't pardon if he's not in office. Until Mueller is finished, everything is conjecture. When the GOP no longer has plausible deniability, I have to believe they jettison Trump.
But I've been saying that for 2 years. So what do I know.
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Perfect. Thanks for this. Appreciated instead of the usual nonsense from the usual suspects.
But isn't the response from the Feds acting quickly to insure full federal resources were immediately available to assist state and local governments - like Trump did in signing the disaster order before the storm landed? And maybe, for once, that there is the right person in the position as a Trump appointee (Brock Long - FEMA)?
Obviously time will tell, and what comes later is subject to speculation, and criticism. But at this point criticism is pretty dumb.
He acted as quickly as he could with the levers he has, I think. But for him and for the GOP the real test is still to come.
Basically, the issue is that there will need to be significant expenditures authorized for cleanup and remediation efforts after the fact, and FEMA will need to be able to deploy very quickly into the disaster areas to offer relief to those affected (which I believe has not yet happened). Signing disaster declarations is nice, but it is like step 1 of about 100, and history suggests Trump lacks the attention span to deal appropriately with this sort of thing.
Not to mention that the financial expenditures may require compromising other parts of the GOP agenda, and we may see the situation where the GOP says "turf the wall" and Trump would rather put tax reform on the back burner, and if they can't agree nothing will get funded and relief efforts will be inadequate. Hopefully none of that comes to pass, as this is not really about "politics" any longer but people's lives.
So Donny said he pardoned Arpaio on Friday during a hurricane because he thought the ratings would be higher, just in case there was even a little doubt left as to whether he is deeply mentally ill.
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Cool. New tanks, bayonets and grenade launchers for everybody. Good thing North Korea launched a plug rocket today. That's way scarier...right?
Christ on a cracker, it's just one crazy thing after another. I honestly can't even keep up with it anymore. Every time I check this thread, it seems like there are always 2 or 3 more insane things that Trump has done just in the span of 24 hours.
This one is yet another Obama policy that he's obviously reversing simply out of spite, all because he's a childish petulant d-bag.
I love that the cops don't even need training any more. Just hop in the tank and go. Take the bazooka's out to the gravel pit and let 'er rip. Good to go.
You think videos of cops shooting unarmed blacks look bad? Wait until the first video of a cop holding a bayonet gets a bit scared and starts stabbing at someone. What a bad idea.
I'm curious where the 2nd amendment types are on this issue? The whole intent of the 2nd amendment, in their minds, is to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. Does this move not make the government that much more tyrannical and a greater threat to the people now?
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Well, they and the NRA also say they need guns to hunt food to feed their families, so .... yeah, war on the streets with the tyrannical government, and squirrel stew, they need guns.
I'm just loving all the we are all one America with this tragedy in Texas stuff happening in the news. Imagine if two NY state senators spoke out against sending federal funds to help Texas like the 2 Texas senators did for Sandy. I can only imagine how many Texans were cheering on their senators for voting against the relief bill for those dirty liberals in the North East.
Not one peep from anyone against sending Texas support, because unlike people like Ted Cruz and sadly many Texas conservatives, people actually have empathy.
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I can't tell you how many times I've seen people of one color helping a person of another color pictures on Facebook with the caption "This is the true America!".
And yes that is a big part of it. BUt you don't get to ignore the other parts that were in evidence a short while ago. BOTH those things are the TRUE America and the complete unwillingness to address and face one of those things is why both are true.
I'm just loving all the we are all one America with this tragedy in Texas stuff happening in the news. Imagine if two NY state senators spoke out against sending federal funds to help Texas like the 2 Texas senators did for Sandy. I can only imagine how many Texans were cheering on their senators for voting against the relief bill for those dirty liberals in the North East.
Not one peep from anyone against sending Texas support, because unlike people like Ted Cruz and sadly many Texas conservatives, people actually have empathy.
Two senators and 23 (yes, 23) representatives from Texas voted against supporting those hit by Sandy.
Just 10 days before Hurricane Harvey descended upon Texas on Friday, wreaking havoc and submerging hundreds of miles of land under water,
President Donald Trump signed an executive order revoking a set of regulations that would have made federally-funded infrastructure less vulnerable to flooding.
The Obama-era rules, which had not yet gone into effect, would have required the federal government to take into account the risk of flooding and sea-level rise as a result of climate change when constructing new infrastructure and rebuilding after disasters.
Experts are predicting Harvey the most powerful storm to hit the US since 2004 will cost Texas between $30 billion and $100 billion in damage.
And in the coming days, Congress will be called upon to send billions of federal dollars to help with the state's recovery and rebuilding efforts.
But because of Trump's rollback of Obama's Federal Flood Risk Management Standards, experts across the political spectrum say much of the federal money sent to Texas will likely be wasted on construction that will be insufficiently protected from the next storm.
"We will rebuild things that should not be rebuilt and ... in ways that are less safe and secure than they should be," Eli Lehrer, president of the DC free-market think tank R Street Institute, told Business Insider.
The Obama-era rules, which had not yet gone into effect, would have required the federal government to take into account the risk of flooding and sea-level rise as a result of climate change when constructing new infrastructure and rebuilding after disasters.
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I was just thinking, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump just simply said, undo everything Obama has done, reverse everything, undo everything. Start with anything with the words climate change in it and then get to everything else.
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I was just thinking, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump just simply said, undo everything Obama has done, reverse everything, undo everything. Start with anything with the words climate change in it and then get to everything else.
That's the Republican view, imagine President Cruz undoing everything. That guy is a weasel.
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Trump sitting in on a FEMA/National Guard briefing on the flood right now, and he looks like a deer in headlights. I wonder what's going through is head?
"Son of a bitch, this is gonna take so much money away from my border wall funding. Hillary...emails...FAKE NEWS...god I hate Morning Joe..."
Lol, Republicans gerrymander a senate district to encompass a Democratic Senator's second house, just in case he moves there and decides to run against the Republican Senator. Moves over 1000 people to a different district.
