Trump 10: Orange Voldemort Rises

[candygirl200413]

Pence (what's a great nickname for him by the way?) is in my city today talking about giving the country back to the people... which the country did and no one listened

[TeddyBonkers]

4 minutes ago, candygirl200413 said:

Pence (what's a great nickname for him by the way?) is in my city today talking about giving the country back to the people... which the country did and no one listened

NO-SENSE PENCE! Sorry for shouting, I just like to rhyme.

[iweartanktops]

I thought it wasn't a ban. Hmmm.... 

[Cartmann99]

3 minutes ago, iweartanktops said:

I thought it wasn't a ban. Hmmm.... 

You'd think that a husband who has been away from his wife and youngest son all week, would put the phone away for the weekend to spend time with them. SMDH

[onekidanddone]

54 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

A friend of mine on FB counted 12 tweets before noon from the Orange Fornicating Hole of a Donkey, it was either today or yesterday.  And one of her other FB friends said if he had tweeted that much on the job he would've been canned for it.

I just saw this a few minutes ago.

https://www.good.is/articles/trump-dress-like-a-woman

Here's one of the women reacting to the fornicating donkey's dress like a woman horse manure..

I think I shall have to follow her now on the twitters....

Don't they know once it is on the internet it never goes away?

http://people.com/celebrity/donald-trump-motorboats-rudy-giuliani-in-drag-in-unearthed-sketch/ 

16 minutes ago, iweartanktops said:

I thought it wasn't a ban. Hmmm.... 

It is called the Constitution you stupid orange sack of shit.

[iweartanktops]

It's so funny watching him throw a virtual tantrum over checks and balances! He's grossly incompetent. SAD.

[Ali]

The Orange Toddler was told that he is not getting a cookie and he is throwing a tantrum on twitter. Is this reality?

[VixenToast]

1 minute ago, Ali said:

The Orange Toddler was told that he is not getting a cookie and he is throwing a tantrum on twitter. Is this reality?

Somehow.... yes.

[Mecca]

I was watching Smerconish this morning and good ol' Tony Perkins was on talking about the Johnson Amendment. Apparently Perkins was on the platform committee for Trump about repealing the JA. Shocker! We all know Perkins is a jerk, but he also has a poor judgment. He did hire Josh Duggar. 

Basically to boils down to this. Perkins, and many like him, want to be able to do whatever they want to do and say whatever they want to say and still keep their tax exemption. He claims his freedom of speech is being trampled on by the government. Big ol' pile of horse shit. This is just another way for the evangelicals to discriminate against us heathens and still get out of paying taxes because they think they are special. 

[Dark Matters]

1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

You'd think that a husband who has been away from his wife and youngest son all week, would put the phone away for the weekend to spend time with them. SMDH

The wife and son are just props - I doubt he thinks much about them unless he needs them for photo ops.

[iweartanktops]

People, can someone PLEASE TELL ME why the goddamn media doesn't talk about his Twitter fits!?? WHY? If this was the Obama administration he would be so fucked across EVERY media platform. WHAT IS HAPPENING? 

[Dark Matters]

We need more people from the govt to stand up and speak out.

America quickly losing moral high ground under Trump

http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/america-quickly-losing-moral-high-ground-under-trump/

After the first week of the Trump administration, however, I feel compelled to say this: I have never been so ashamed of American foreign policy as I have been in the past few days.

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, TeddyBonkers said:

NO-SENSE PENCE! Sorry for shouting, I just like to rhyme.

I was thinking Dense Pence.

[RoseWilder]

Strangely enough, the very same Republicans who were always whining about having to pay for protection for the Obama family when they go home to Hawaii are all completely silent about this: 

 

[AuntK]

2 hours ago, iweartanktops said:

 

I still can't believe he's the PRESIDENT. What the ever loving fuck is this? HOW is he getting away with this shit? 

Mr. so-called president, please go fuck yourself. 

He might have a little trouble doing that. According to an item I read on fb, the drug, finasteride, that he is taking for his hair, has a side effect of sexual dysfunction, which doesn't surprise me. Also mental confusion. . . ding, ding ding ding ding!

[iweartanktops]

21 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

Strangely enough, the very same Republicans who were always whining about having to pay for protection for the Obama family when they go home to Hawaii are all completely silent about this: 

 

Oh, every single thing PRESIDENT Obama did was scrutinized to pieces. The hypocrisy kills me. I saw a tweet the other day that said something like, "imagine if Michelle Obama had insisted on living in a gold tower rather than the White House." People, the media, everyone would have bitched about it for 8 years. 

21 minutes ago, AuntK said:

He might have a little trouble doing that. According to an item I read on fb, the drug, finasteride, that he is taking for his hair, has a side effect of sexual dysfunction, which doesn't surprise me. Also mental confusion. . . ding, ding ding ding ding!

Hahaha! 

[Ali]

1 hour ago, iweartanktops said:

People, can someone PLEASE TELL ME why the goddamn media doesn't talk about his Twitter fits!?? WHY? If this was the Obama administration he would be so fucked across EVERY media platform. WHAT IS HAPPENING? 

Do you follow Dan Rather and his "News and Guts" page on Facebook? He doesn't address every tweet. He tries to focus on the ones that need to be addressed the most like the so-called twitter fit today. He has been critical of the media. His pages and Free Jinger are what is getting me through this the most.

[iweartanktops]

Thank you, @Ali! I'm going to follow now. Also, I don't understand why no one asks Spicer about this shit on his "update speeches". You know, relevant questions. 

[GreyhoundFan]

4 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

I want at least seven years of tax returns and for all presidential candidates to undergo a full medical and psychiatric examination. I feel the American public has the right to know these things before someone gets access to the nuclear codes.

I'd want the medical and psychiatric examinations from doctors who were not in the employ of the candidate, say doctors from Walter Reed Medical Center. Otherwise you get crap like the quack who wrote Agent Orange's "medical letter." The tax returns for the candidate and spouse should be non-negotiable.

 

1 hour ago, Dark Matters said:

The wife and son are just props - I doubt he thinks much about them unless he needs them for photo ops.

The only one he seems to think about (other than himself) is Ivanka.

 

4 minutes ago, iweartanktops said:

Thank you, @Ali! I'm going to follow now. Also, I don't understand why no one asks Spicer about this shit on his "update speeches". You know, relevant questions. 

Spicer couldn't answer a relevant question if it hit him in the face. Multiple times.

 

Here's a good article: "Donald Trump’s Vanity Is Destroying His Presidency"

Spoiler

Long before he embarked on the ultimate ego trip, leveraging his celebrity to seize the highest levels of political power, Donald Trump spent decades obsessed with appearances. An outer-borough boy from Queens who grew up longing to make his name in Manhattan, Trump flecked his every home with gold, bleached his teeth, and blew out his hair in a gaudy simulacrum of wealth. He called gossip pages and other reporters, adopting a fictitious P.R. persona, to give scoops about himself, hoping to see his name in print. He ran beauty pageants and created his own reality show where he could star. Like a modern-day Midas, he branded everything he touched, and licensed his name so that entire stretches of Manhattan’s West side would bear the words “TRUMP,” spelled out in three foot-high golden letters, reflecting across the Hudson River. He did interview after interview picking apart the appearances of foes and friends alike—extolling the attractiveness of his own daughter, for one, while calling Rosie O’Donnell a “fat pig.”

Americans witnessed this childish display throughout the 2016 campaign and, it seems, his fans approved. They cheered his rhetorical assault on the establishment, the status quo, bien-pensant thinking and sensibilities. Trump’s core support never wavered, even when he ripped into the looks of Alicia Machado, or dismissed allegations of sexual harassment by claiming his accusers were not attractive enough to warrant his attention, or when he retweeted an image contrasting a less-than-flattering photo of Ted Cruz’s wife with a stunning shot of his wife, Melania (his third spouse, all three of whom were former models).

This translates into a fixation on how Trump himself is perceived, too. That’s why he could not stop talking about how well he was doing in polls and how many people showed up to his rallies. It’s why he insisted that Mexicans loved him even as he called them “rapists” and repeatedly promised to build a wall to keep “bad hombres” out of the United States. Only Trump alone would be able to save the American people from the dismal picture he painted of the state of the nation, because he was the smartest, the best deal-maker, the most respected, he would say. Perhaps this is why, too, as his doctor admitted in a recent interview with The New York Times, Trump takes a prostate-related drug, Propecia, to ward off male-pattern baldness.

Old habits die hard, particularly for 70-year-old billionaires, which is why, even with the nuclear football tucked under his arm and the weight of the free world on his shoulders, Trump remains deeply concerned about the visuals of his presidency. According to a new report from Axios, sources close to Trump noted that the president chose his Cabinet nominees based, in part, on who best looked the part (General James Mattis and his “strut” got the nomination over General David Petraeus, who Trump noted to aides was quite short). He expects his staff to wear ties—the wider the better—and the women who work for him “to dress like women,” which often means pressure to wear dresses.

Donald Trump is far from the first narcissist infatuated with optics to work in Washington. But the magnitude of both his position and his attention to appearance while in that role is stunning. On the first morning he woke up in the White House, for instance, he reportedly personally called Park Services in order to discuss photos they posted of the size of his inaugural crowds. That same day, he used his speech at C.I.A. headquarters to again talk about how many people came out to watch him take the oath of office, and he sent his press secretary Sean Spicer into the White House briefing room to falsely claim that it was the most-watched inauguration in history. (Trump was reportedly furious with Spicer afterward, not because he blatantly lied to the American people or stormed out of the room, but because he did not approve of his ill-fitting suit, pin-striped suit.)

Trump continued to focus on superficial details and perceived slights as his presidency entered its second week, even as his hastily-written executive order restricting travel from seven majority-Muslim countries provoked mass protests in the U.S., confusion within his own agencies, and outrage around the world. When he had the chance to talk to Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull on Saturday, he boasted about his electoral college win and ended the call early after clashing over a refugee resettlement agreement,The Washington Post reported. On Wednesday, he turned a brief speech commemorating the start of Black History Month into a rant against the media, particularly CNN, which he called “fake news.” And at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Thursday morning, Trump joked onstage that we should be praying for Arnold Schwarzenegger and his ratings for The Apprentice, the reality show the former California governor took over when Trump stepped down from the gig.

While Trump seems to care a great deal about his electoral win and his crowds and his ratings, he does not appear to give that same attention to keeping key allies, advisers, and partners in his good graces. Both Rex Tillerson, who was sworn in as secretary of state on Wednesday, and Department of Homeland Security chief John Kelly were reportedly upset with the president for not giving them enough time to review Trump’s immigration order before he signed it on Friday. On a call with Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto last week, after Trump blew up their planned meeting with a series of tweets about the country paying for his planned wall at the border, Business Insider reports that Trump was “offensive,” told him that he was going to pay for the wall whether he liked it or not, and threatened to use military force to fight the drug trade if they couldn’t handle it themselves (both sides have called the phone conversation “friendly”). A source told me last week that the canceled meeting infuriated Trump’s usually unflappable son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner, who had spent a full day brokering it.

Political observers have long hoped that Trump might rise above his insecurities now that he understands the grave responsibilities of the presidency, with all its attendant briefings on secret intelligence and sobering insights into national security. Yet, Trump does not seem to be sweating this big stuff. Instead, he seems to be becoming smaller, and more petulant, every day. Spicer’s tie, the number of people who watched his Supreme Court nomination announcement, these get under his skin. Alienating and prematurely hanging up on a critical American ally trying to talk about Syrian refugees? Who has time for that when there are Apprentice ratings to poke fun of and cable news pundits, talking about him, to watch?

 

HBO is running a John Oliver marathon. It was just what I needed today!

[GreyhoundFan]

You couldn't make this shit up: "Trump Says He Cut Wall Street Reform Because His “Friends” Need Money"

Quote

On Friday, Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to roll back Dodd-Frank, the sprawling regulatory framework President Obama signed into law in 2010 to avoid another financial crisis, which was not entirely beloved on Wall Street. He also scrapped a fiduciary rule intended to protect retirees by forcing brokers and advisers to “work in the best interest of their clients.“ (This, too, was controversial.)

According to its defenders, Dodd-Frank has been a modestly successful, if tortuous affair, requiring banks to bend over backwards to comply with regulations that protect investors and consumers from abusive practices and excessive risk. According to Trump, it was inconveniencing his friends:

“There is nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than [JP Morgan C.E.O.] Jamie [Dimon]. So he has to tell me about it, but we expect to be cutting a lot from Dodd-Frank because, frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine, that have nice businesses, they can’t borrow money,” Trump said Friday morning, shortly before signing the executive orders. “They just can’t get any money because the banks just won’t let them borrow because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank.”

And here’s how Gary Cohn, Goldman Sachs president turned White House National Economic Council Director made the case for getting rid of the fiduciary rule unveiled last spring:

“We think it is a bad rule. It is a bad rule for consumers. This is like putting only healthy food on the menu, because unhealthy food tastes good but you still shouldn’t eat it because you might die younger.”

That is literally the greatest analogy we’ve ever heard, and we challenge Cohn and the Trump administration to top it. (In fact, the only way they could is if Cohn appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday and said, “The fiduciary rule is like only putting out vape pens at a party, because crystal meth feels good but you still shouldn’t smoke it because you might die younger.” Let the consumer have their meth! How could more choice be bad, in an industry defined by vast asymmetries of information between brokers and consumers?

Oh, and in case you were wondering: Elizabeth Warren is obviously pissed about all of this.

“Donald Trump talked a big game about Wall Street during his campaign—but as president, we're finding out whose side he's really on,” the Massachusetts senator said in a statement. “Today, after literally standing alongside big bank and hedge fund C.E.O.s, he announced two orders—one that will make it easier for investment advisers to cheat you out of your retirement savings, and another that will put two former Goldman Sachs executives in charge of gutting the rules that protect you from financial fraud and another economic meltdown.”

Warren, along with Senator Tammy Baldwin, also sent a letter to Gary Cohn telling him he ought to “recuse himself from decisions directly or indirectly related to Goldman Sachs.”

Wall Street puts Trump on notice

Many business people who might not otherwise have voted for Trump because of his comments on Muslims, women, Mexico, disabled people, and more, were ultimately seduced by the idea of tax reform and other pro-growth policies. Strangely, Trump’s priorities in his first 14 days in office focused far more on exciting executive orders to keep out Mexicans and Muslims than boring policies to cut tax rates or close loopholes. Still, investors don’t want to judge the president too quickly, so they’re going to give him just over three months to prove he’s only floating his ultra-nationalist policies for yuks before getting down to the business of being pro-business. Per the Journal:

Mr. Trump’s election victory initially boosted stocks—the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose above its 20,000-point landmark in January—but markets have traded sideways over the past month. The next 100 days is seen as a crucial period for some investors to gauge whether the policy mix they want—all of the pro-business, none of the protectionist—will materialize.

“The next 100 days will be important to see what he will implement and how,” said Monica Defend, Pioneer Investments’s head of global asset-allocation research. Pioneer is betting the price of risky U.S. assets, such as equities, will continue to gain but has also increased allocations of gold as insurance against political turmoil.

Nicolò Carpaneda, investment director of the retail fixed-interest team at M&G Investments, believes money managers won’t have much patience and could suddenly decide to either jump in or sell off. “If you want a number, I’ll say 30 days instead of 100,” he said.

Presumably, his actions Friday regarding the wholesale nuking of Dodd-Frank will be seen as a step in the right direction, though the government revoking 100,000+ visas is not a great look.

 

Oh, boo-freaking-hoo, your billionaire buddies couldn't borrow more money because of Dodd-Frank. My heart bleeds for you. NOT.

 

[samira_catlover]

On 2/2/2017 at 0:47 PM, fraurosena said:

There are so many noteworthy things in this Reuters article I'm not even going to attempt to highlight them. It's not that long though. Bewarned, each and every paragraph contains another level of stupid and/or scary and it will have you gnashing your teeth:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-idUSKBN15H1RU?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social

Wut? Is this guy for real? According to John F. Kelly, the border wall between America and Mexico will be finished in two years... 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/01/dhs-secretary-border-wall-should-be-finished-in-two-years.html

For those of you who don't want to give Faux News any clicks I've quoted the text under the spoiler.

  Hide contents

MCALLEN, Texas –  EXCLUSIVE: In his first television interview as Homeland Security secretary, retired four-star Marine Gen. John F. Kelly told Fox News he wants the U.S.-Mexico border wall finished in two years – setting an ambitious schedule for the project ordered last week by President Trump. 

"The wall will be built where it's needed first, and then it will be filled in. That's the way I look at it," Kelly said. "I really hope to have it done within the next two years."

Fox News traveled with Kelly in McAllen, Texas, on Wednesday where he saw first-hand the challenges for Border Patrol agents. The Rio Grande Valley, known as the "RGV sector," is among the busiest. On any given day, Border Patrol agents pick up at least 600 people who have crossed the Mexican border, entering the U.S. illegally. 

Those personnel, he explained, are all part of the broader plan for securing the border.  

"Any discussion about the protection of our southwest border involves discussion of physical barriers but also of technological sensors, things like that,” he said. “But it's a layered approach, and it’s got to be backed up by great men and women who are going to make sure that the wall is intact."  

But first, the department faces the tough task of funding – and then building – what would be the largest-ever construction project undertaken by the president who made his name in real estate. 

Kelly, who was tasked by the president’s executive order with overseeing the planning and construction of the wall, echoed Trump in saying they already “have the authority” under existing law. 

“We're looking at the money aspect,” he acknowledged. But he said the White House is working with Congress on the timetable. 

“I think the funding will come relatively quickly and like I said, we will build it where it's needed first as identified by the men and women who work the border," Kelly emphasized.

Kelly said it will be only a matter of months before construction begins. 

Kelly also said he supported a "surge" of resources to the border so that processing those who cross illegally can happen in a matter of weeks, not "600 plus days."

"If we could surge the court proceedings -- immigration court proceedings on the border -- and within the law, do it very rapidly ... I think that alone would act as a huge deterrent for people who are considering making the trip up," he said. 

As for hostility to the wall from Mexico, Kelly said the safety of Americans comes first, though he wants to build a partnership on shared border issues. "I'd really like to establish a relationship on this, on the other side. It would be a mutually beneficial relationship."

Kelly also defended his agents in the wake of last week’s controversial executive order suspending the refugee program and restricting travel from seven mostly Muslim countries. As his agency came under fire over the weekend, he said the department worked to verify reports of mistreatment, and could not. Kelly suggested critics had blown the issue out of proportion. 

"Mr. Trump is not loved by everyone in America, and I think this very rapid succession of decisions, I don't think the American public is really all that used to people making decisions,” he said. “I really don't think they're used to people that say things on the campaign trail actually turning them into action."

Asked if the pace had come as a "shock" to the public, Kelly said: "Yes, I think so. But I will tell you the men and women of Homeland Security did a great job out on the front lines, in this case mostly at the airports. People were treated with dignity and respect."

Kelly knocked down media reports that he first learned of the executive order by watching television, the day it was signed, a story first reported by the New York Times: "As soon as I was confirmed which was on Friday a couple of weeks ago, inauguration day, I knew that they were being developed.”

Asked if he was "blindsided by the order," Kelly said, "Not at all. I saw the initial couple of cuts on them probably on Tuesday maybe Thursday, knew it was coming soon and then it came. "

After more than 45 years of service, Kelly retired last year, and did not plan a return to Washington or full-time employment. He said it all changed with a cold call from the transition team when he and his wife Karen were relaxing. 

Kelly was initially skeptical about the caller, who is now White House chief of staff.

"We were sitting on the couch when I got the original call on a Saturday afternoon and Reince Priebus called me,” he said. “I don't know him. Once he convinced me it was really Reince Priebus, he said, ‘Would you come up and talk to Mr. Trump, he'd like to talk to you about a position in the administration.’ And I said, ‘I can do that, I'll be up tomorrow.’”

He told his wife he thought the Trump administration was about to offer him a job. 

“She said, ‘take it, your whole life, our whole life, the Kelly family is a life of service.’"

 

Way late to the funeral, but face/palming over here. In the DC Metro area, it takes MONTHS TO YEARS to get critical roadway expansions or bridge repairs---and that's with a lot of workers living locally, and supplies NOT that hard to get.  At the risk of beating that poor dead horse:

You'd better make damned sure the border is correctly surveyed. Even with the Army Corps of Engineers, that's a couple months. Environmental impact studies (unless deemed unnecessary by those lunatics)---a couple more. In all likelihood, the US will have to use some eminent domain claims---which means court hearings. Has anyone seen the courts taking off at high speed recently?  Unless Federal regs have changed significantly, they're SUPPOSED to get RFPs (Requests for Proposals) to allow competitive bidding...so you publish the need and expected specs, THEN wait for vendors to run their numbers and submit, then decide who gets what contract.

If some of those areas are sorta kinda desolate, you'll need to either set up tempo housing on worksite and pay a premium for live-in workers, or pay high wages for travel time.  Either way, you'll need potable water and portapotties, probably some sort of medical backup, likely electrical power or a hell of a lot of generators and fuel. Now, factor in the costs of temp roads to bring in supplies, and the travel time it takes to haul in heavy digging equipment....

It *might* be doable in 2 years if you go cost-plus, forget about a lot of regs, and have a zillion workers, yeah. Heck,we did the Alcan Highway pretty fast--a bit over 6 months---but that had 10,000+military workers. Don't any of these clowns ever sit down with pen and paper and coffee and do some figuring?

[GreyhoundFan]

Oh, another good one: "Documents confirm Trump still benefiting from his business"

Quote

Before taking office, President Trump promised to place his assets in a trust designed to erect a wall between him and the businesses that made him wealthy.

But newly released documents show that Trump himself is the sole beneficiary of the trust and that it is legally controlled by his oldest son and a longtime employee.

The documents, obtained through a public records request by the investigative news service ProPublica and first reported by the New York Times, also show that Trump retains the legal power to revoke the trust at any time.

The documents were filed to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board in Washington to alert the board that oversees liquor licenses at Trump’s D.C. hotel of the change in the business.

The documents show that Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, and Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, were placed in legal control of the trust on Jan. 19, one day before Trump took office.

But they outline that the trust’s purpose is “to hold assets for the exclusive benefit of Donald J. Trump,” who “has the power to revoke the Trust.”

The records provide documentary evidence of what ethics experts have been warning about since before Trump took office.

While Trump has promised he will observe a separation between his business and the presidency, he retains ownership of the business and will personally benefit if the business profits from decisions made by his government.

Further, the business will be run by family members who remain the most trusted members of Trump’s inner circle, raising questions about whether Trump’s promises to limit communication about the business’s fate are realistic.

“What I’m going to be doing is my two sons, who are right here, Don and Eric, are going to be running the company,” Trump had said at a news conference shortly before taking office. “They are going to be running it in a very professional manner. They’re not going to discuss it with me.”

Less than two weeks after returning to their New York City home following their father’s inauguration, Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric Trump, also assigned to run the business, were back in Washington this week to attend the announcement of Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court.

Trump Organization representatives did not respond for comment about the documents Saturday.

The trust also does not dissolve other potential conflicts, including his title as executive producer of the NBC competition reality show “Celebrity Apprentice.” He recently made headlines for criticizing the show’s new host, former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, at the National Prayer Breakfast.

NBC representatives have not said whether Trump will be compensated for that role, or how much. But executive producers are traditionally paid, even when only retaining a passive credit.

The trust document obtained by ProPublica is attached to license filings tied to Trump’s Washington hotel, and it remains unclear whether other Trump businesses are governed under the same trust. The company has declined multiple requests to provide company trust agreements that could provide more clarity.

In recent weeks, corporate filings have documented that the Trump Organization has been removing the president as an officer or director of the more than 400 entities registered across the country associated with the organization.

The Trump Organization also provided a list, signed by Trump on the day before his inauguration, of more than 400 companies from which he had agreed to resign. Other companies have been dissolved in recent months, the company said.

Those resignations provide evidence the president no longer has official management responsibilities in the businesses, as he and his attorney pledged during a news conference last month. Still, Trump will continue to profit from their success.

The company has also named Bobby Burchfield, a veteran Republican lawyer who has advised both Bush presidential teams, to serve as an outside ethics adviser, indicating that some corporate transactions would not be undertaken without his sign-off.

The question of Trump’s continued ownership stake has been particularly nettlesome at his Washington hotel, which is located in the Old Post Office building and is owned by the federal government. The terms of the 2013 lease agreement with the General Services Administration prohibit any elected official from benefiting from the property.

It is not yet clear whether placing his shares in the hotel under the control of the trust will provide sufficient legal separation to satisfy the terms of the lease. The GSA, which controls the lease, indicated on Jan. 27 that it had received new information from the Trump Organization and was “reviewing and evaluating this information to assess its compliance with the terms and conditions of the Old Post Office lease.”

Congressional Democrats, including Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), have been pressing the GSA to conclude that the Trump Organization is out of compliance with the lease.

“This legal concoction from President Trump’s lawyers does nothing to address his conflicts of interest or the breach of the lease for his hotel,” Cummings said in a statement.

 

You know, if anyone else was in this position, Jason Chaffetz, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell would have been screaming to kingdom come. But because it's Trumplethinskin, they turn their heads in the other direction.

 

[VelociRapture]

4 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

Pence (what's a great nickname for him by the way?) is in my city today talking about giving the country back to the people... which the country did and no one listened

Personally, I enjoy calling him "Silas the Albino" (from The DaVinci Code) or "Cotton Hill."

[47of74]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'd want the medical and psychiatric examinations from doctors who were not in the employ of the candidate, say doctors from Walter Reed Medical Center. Otherwise you get crap like the quack who wrote Agent Orange's "medical letter." The tax returns for the candidate and spouse should be non-negotiable.

 

The only one he seems to think about (other than himself) is Ivanka.

 

Spicer couldn't answer a relevant question if it hit him in the face. Multiple times.

 

Here's a good article: "Donald Trump’s Vanity Is Destroying His Presidency"

  Reveal hidden contents

Long before he embarked on the ultimate ego trip, leveraging his celebrity to seize the highest levels of political power, Donald Trump spent decades obsessed with appearances. An outer-borough boy from Queens who grew up longing to make his name in Manhattan, Trump flecked his every home with gold, bleached his teeth, and blew out his hair in a gaudy simulacrum of wealth. He called gossip pages and other reporters, adopting a fictitious P.R. persona, to give scoops about himself, hoping to see his name in print. He ran beauty pageants and created his own reality show where he could star. Like a modern-day Midas, he branded everything he touched, and licensed his name so that entire stretches of Manhattan’s West side would bear the words “TRUMP,” spelled out in three foot-high golden letters, reflecting across the Hudson River. He did interview after interview picking apart the appearances of foes and friends alike—extolling the attractiveness of his own daughter, for one, while calling Rosie O’Donnell a “fat pig.”

Americans witnessed this childish display throughout the 2016 campaign and, it seems, his fans approved. They cheered his rhetorical assault on the establishment, the status quo, bien-pensant thinking and sensibilities. Trump’s core support never wavered, even when he ripped into the looks of Alicia Machado, or dismissed allegations of sexual harassment by claiming his accusers were not attractive enough to warrant his attention, or when he retweeted an image contrasting a less-than-flattering photo of Ted Cruz’s wife with a stunning shot of his wife, Melania (his third spouse, all three of whom were former models).

This translates into a fixation on how Trump himself is perceived, too. That’s why he could not stop talking about how well he was doing in polls and how many people showed up to his rallies. It’s why he insisted that Mexicans loved him even as he called them “rapists” and repeatedly promised to build a wall to keep “bad hombres” out of the United States. Only Trump alone would be able to save the American people from the dismal picture he painted of the state of the nation, because he was the smartest, the best deal-maker, the most respected, he would say. Perhaps this is why, too, as his doctor admitted in a recent interview with The New York Times, Trump takes a prostate-related drug, Propecia, to ward off male-pattern baldness.

Old habits die hard, particularly for 70-year-old billionaires, which is why, even with the nuclear football tucked under his arm and the weight of the free world on his shoulders, Trump remains deeply concerned about the visuals of his presidency. According to a new report from Axios, sources close to Trump noted that the president chose his Cabinet nominees based, in part, on who best looked the part (General James Mattis and his “strut” got the nomination over General David Petraeus, who Trump noted to aides was quite short). He expects his staff to wear ties—the wider the better—and the women who work for him “to dress like women,” which often means pressure to wear dresses.

Donald Trump is far from the first narcissist infatuated with optics to work in Washington. But the magnitude of both his position and his attention to appearance while in that role is stunning. On the first morning he woke up in the White House, for instance, he reportedly personally called Park Services in order to discuss photos they posted of the size of his inaugural crowds. That same day, he used his speech at C.I.A. headquarters to again talk about how many people came out to watch him take the oath of office, and he sent his press secretary Sean Spicer into the White House briefing room to falsely claim that it was the most-watched inauguration in history. (Trump was reportedly furious with Spicer afterward, not because he blatantly lied to the American people or stormed out of the room, but because he did not approve of his ill-fitting suit, pin-striped suit.)

Trump continued to focus on superficial details and perceived slights as his presidency entered its second week, even as his hastily-written executive order restricting travel from seven majority-Muslim countries provoked mass protests in the U.S., confusion within his own agencies, and outrage around the world. When he had the chance to talk to Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull on Saturday, he boasted about his electoral college win and ended the call early after clashing over a refugee resettlement agreement,The Washington Post reported. On Wednesday, he turned a brief speech commemorating the start of Black History Month into a rant against the media, particularly CNN, which he called “fake news.” And at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Thursday morning, Trump joked onstage that we should be praying for Arnold Schwarzenegger and his ratings for The Apprentice, the reality show the former California governor took over when Trump stepped down from the gig.

While Trump seems to care a great deal about his electoral win and his crowds and his ratings, he does not appear to give that same attention to keeping key allies, advisers, and partners in his good graces. Both Rex Tillerson, who was sworn in as secretary of state on Wednesday, and Department of Homeland Security chief John Kelly were reportedly upset with the president for not giving them enough time to review Trump’s immigration order before he signed it on Friday. On a call with Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto last week, after Trump blew up their planned meeting with a series of tweets about the country paying for his planned wall at the border, Business Insider reports that Trump was “offensive,” told him that he was going to pay for the wall whether he liked it or not, and threatened to use military force to fight the drug trade if they couldn’t handle it themselves (both sides have called the phone conversation “friendly”). A source told me last week that the canceled meeting infuriated Trump’s usually unflappable son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner, who had spent a full day brokering it.

Political observers have long hoped that Trump might rise above his insecurities now that he understands the grave responsibilities of the presidency, with all its attendant briefings on secret intelligence and sobering insights into national security. Yet, Trump does not seem to be sweating this big stuff. Instead, he seems to be becoming smaller, and more petulant, every day. Spicer’s tie, the number of people who watched his Supreme Court nomination announcement, these get under his skin. Alienating and prematurely hanging up on a critical American ally trying to talk about Syrian refugees? Who has time for that when there are Apprentice ratings to poke fun of and cable news pundits, talking about him, to watch?

 

HBO is running a John Oliver marathon. It was just what I needed today!

Also, the U.S. Marshals should be controlled only by the judicial branch, with neither the legislative or executive branches having any say in the operations of the Marshals.  And their primary job should be enforcing the orders of the courts. 

[Cartmann99]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'd want the medical and psychiatric examinations from doctors who were not in the employ of the candidate, say doctors from Walter Reed Medical Center. Otherwise you get crap like the quack who wrote Agent Orange's "medical letter." The tax returns for the candidate and spouse should be non-negotiable.

Yes, to all of the above!

 

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

He also scrapped a fiduciary rule intended to protect retirees by forcing brokers and advisers to “work in the best interest of their clients.“ (This, too, was controversial.)

When I read about the rule change for financial advisors, I was livid. Why are his voters not screaming about this?!?

People who don't manage their own investments go to advisors because they want someone to choose investments that will help them achieve their financial goals. Paying that person a reasonable fee or percentage for their expertise is great, but advisors should always be choosing investments based on what is in the best needs of the customer, not what makes them the highest commission.

Also, I just saw on Twitter that Trump supporters are now boycotting Budweiser beer, because they made a commercial that highlighted how one of their founders came to America from Germany. Trump fans are upset because they think Budweiser is attacking Trump.