quote:

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team is asking witnesses pointed questions about whether Donald Trump was aware that Democratic emails had been stolen before that was publicly known, and whether he was involved in their strategic release, according to multiple people familiar with the probe.

Mueller's investigators have asked witnesses whether Trump was aware of plans for WikiLeaks to publish the emails. They have also asked about the relationship between GOP operative Roger Stone and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and why Trump took policy positions favorable to Russia.

The line of questioning suggests the special counsel, who is tasked with examining whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, is looking into possible coordination between WikiLeaks and Trump associates in disseminating the emails, which U.S. intelligence officials say were stolen by Russia.

[..]

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 20:59 schreef Nintex het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]
De blik van Hope zegt alles, Mueller heeft geen poot om op te staan.

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 20:59 schreef Nintex het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]
De blik van Hope zegt alles, Mueller heeft geen poot om op te staan.

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 21:18 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ik snap niet eens wat je bedoelt... Welke claim van Mueller klopt niet of welke handeling mag niet?

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 21:19 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Hij bedoelt: "Ik ben niet geïnteresseerd in politiek, maar ik kom gewoon weer even trollen".

quote:

Hope Hicks, the White House communications director and one of President Trump’s longest-serving advisers, said Wednesday that she was resigning.

Ms. Hicks, 29, a former model who joined Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign without any experience in politics, became known as one of the few aides who understood his personality and style and could challenge the president to change his views.

Ms. Hicks had been considering leaving for several months. She told colleagues that she had accomplished what she felt she could with a job that made her one of the most powerful people in Washington, and that there would never be a perfect moment to leave, according to White House aides.

Her resignation came a day after she testified for eight hours before the House Intelligence Committee, telling the panel that in her job, she had occasionally been required to tell white lies but had never lied about anything connected to the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

SPOILER

She did not say what her next job would be, and it was unclear what the departure date is, although it is likely to be in the next few weeks. Ms. Hicks said she had “no words” to express her gratitude to the president, who responded with his own statement.

“Hope is outstanding and has done great work for the last three years,” Mr. Trump said. “She is as smart and thoughtful as they come, a truly great person. I will miss having her by my side but when she approached me about pursuing other opportunities, I totally understood. I am sure we will work together again in the future.”

As communications director, she worked to stabilize, to some extent, a fractious press department of about 40 people who were often at odds with one another during 2017. She maintained one of the lowest public profiles of anyone to ever hold the job, declining to sit for interviews or appear at the White House briefing room podium. That mystique added to the outsized attention she received.

“I quickly realized what so many have learned about Hope — she is strategic, poised and wise beyond her years,” said John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff. “She became a trusted adviser and counselor and did a tremendous job overseeing the communications for the president’s agenda including the passage of historic tax reform. She has served her country with great distinction. To say that she will be missed, is an understatement.”

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 22:34 schreef OMG het volgende:
Da's dan omdat Mueller geen poot om op te staan heeft, of wat?

twitter:

WardDPatrick twitterde op woensdag 28-02-2018 om 21:28:26 President Trump tells Senators he thinks police should have taken guns away from Nikolas Cruz, whether they had the right or not, "I don't want mentally ill people to be having guns." https://t.co/wU6L8ERlas reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 23:23 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

WardDPatrick twitterde op woensdag 28-02-2018 om 21:28:26 President Trump tells Senators he thinks police should have taken guns away from Nikolas Cruz, whether they had the right or not, "I don't want mentally ill people to be having guns." https://t.co/wU6L8ERlas reageer retweet

Trump dropping the truth bombs

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 22:33 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Hope Hicks to Resign as White House Communications Director

[..]

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 00:27 schreef Tchock het volgende:

[..]

"Ik ben net acht uur lang geïnterviewd over mogelijk strafbare feiten gepleegd door mijn baas, dan ga ik nu maar eens ontslag nemen wat ik trouwens al maanden overwoog, later!"

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 00:27 schreef Tchock het volgende:

[..]

"Ik ben net acht uur lang geïnterviewd over mogelijk strafbare feiten gepleegd door mijn baas, dan ga ik nu maar eens ontslag nemen wat ik trouwens al maanden overwoog, later!"

twitter:

Phil_Mattingly twitterde op woensdag 28-02-2018 om 23:54:24 this @BenSasse statement on the White House meeting on guns is an on the record, profanity-free version of what many GOP aides have been e-mailing/texting in the last few hours: https://t.co/g2r5RnltVV reageer retweet

twitter:

thehill twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 00:52:08 JUST IN: Walmart to raise minimum age for gun purchases to 21 https://t.co/E6PXaN2gjr https://t.co/ViSCgOGkZv reageer retweet

SPOILER

Trump Administration staff resigned or fired:

Gen Mike Flynn

Sally Yates, the acting attorney general

James Comey F.B.I. Director

Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of Manhattan

Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, and members of the State Department

Angella Reid, White House chief usher

Mike Dubke, White House communications director

Robert Iger, advisory council

Katie Walsh, deputy White House chief of staff

Derek Harvey, National Security Council

Walter Shaub, director of the Office of Government Ethics

Michael Short, White House press aide

Craig Deare, National Security Council senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs

K.T. MacFarland, deputy National Security Adviser

Rich Higgins, Director of Strategic Planning

Derek Harvey, Middle East adviser

Tera Dahl, Deputy Chief of Staff

Mark Corralo, the spokesman for President Donald Trump’s legal team,

Sean Spicer

Reince Priebus

Anthony Scaramucci

Ezra Cohen-Watnick intelligence directors of the National Security Council

Steve Bannon

Andy Hemmig-W.H. Rapid Response Director

Sebastian Gorka

William C. Bradford, head Energy Department's Office of Indian Energy

Keith Schiller, former Trump bodyguard, director of Oval Office operations

Chuck Rosenberg, acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration

Tom Price, Secretary of Health and Human Services

Dana Boente, U.S. attorney for Eastern District of Virginia

Sam Clovis, withdraws from nomination for USDA Science chief

Omarosa Manigault

Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser

David Lapan, Department of Homeland Security press secretary

Paul Winfree, the deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council

Teresa Manning, Health and Human Services Department and antiabortion activist

Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Rachel L. Brand, associate attorney general Justice Department

Rob Porter, staff secretary

David Sorensen, Trump Speechwriter

George David Banks, special assistant to the president for international energy and environmental policy

Josh Raffel, Ivanka and Jared Kushner’s spokesman

Hope Hicks, White House communications director

quote:

One of the White House's most important diplomats happens to be an artist -- with a top secret security clearance.

That means the chief White House calligrapher now has greater access to sensitive information than White House adviser -- and President Donald Trump's son-in-law -- Jared Kushner.

CNN

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 01:35 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 01:43 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Calligrapher, is dat zo iemand die als een franciscaan hele mooie letters kan tekenen?

Waarom hebben ze er überhaupt een in dienst?

Sterker nog, het zijn er blijkbaar meerdere anders heb je geen Chief nodig. Trump ondertekent alles gewoon met z'n zwarte sharpie en voor de rest kan/wil hij toch niks lezen.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 01:43 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Sterker nog, het zijn er blijkbaar meerdere anders heb je geen Chief nodig.

twitter:

AP_Images twitterde op woensdag 28-02-2018 om 21:00:19 Worshippers clutching AR-15 rifles and some wearing bullet crowns, participated in a commitment ceremony today at World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, in Newfoundland, Pa. The event led a nearby school to cancel classes for the day. Photos @jacquelinelarma https://t.co/GXzrZeK41z reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 02:05 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

twitter:

AP_Images twitterde op woensdag 28-02-2018 om 21:00:19 Worshippers clutching AR-15 rifles and some wearing bullet crowns, participated in a commitment ceremony today at World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, in Newfoundland, Pa. The event led a nearby school to cancel classes for the day. Photos @jacquelinelarma https://t.co/GXzrZeK41z reageer retweet

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Early last year, a private equity billionaire started paying regular visits to the White House.

Joshua Harris, a founder of Apollo Global Management, was advising Trump administration officials on infrastructure policy. During that period, he met on multiple occasions with Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, said three people familiar with the meetings. Among other things, the two men discussed a possible White House job for Mr. Harris.

The job never materialized, but in November, Apollo lent $184 million to Mr. Kushner’s family real estate firm, Kushner Companies. The loan was to refinance the mortgage on a Chicago skyscraper.

Even by the standards of Apollo, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, the previously unreported transaction with the Kushners was a big deal: It was triple the size of the average property loan made by Apollo’s real estate lending arm, securities filings show.

It was one of the largest loans Kushner Companies received last year. An even larger loan came from Citigroup, which lent the firm and one of its partners $325 million to help finance a group of office buildings in Brooklyn.

SPOILER

That loan was made in the spring of 2017, shortly after Mr. Kushner met in the White House with Citigroup’s chief executive, Michael L. Corbat, according to people briefed on the meeting. The two men talked about financial and trade policy and did not discuss Mr. Kushner’s family business, one person said.

There is little precedent for a top White House official meeting with executives of companies as they contemplate sizable loans to his business, say government ethics experts.

“This is exactly why senior government officials, for as long back as I have any experience, don’t maintain any active outside business interests,” said Don Fox, the former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics during the Obama administration and, before that, a lawyer for the Air Force and Navy during Republican and Democratic administrations. “The appearance of conflicts of interest is simply too great.”



The White House referred questions to Mr. Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, who did not dispute that the meetings between Mr. Kushner and the executives took place.

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Mr. Lowell, said in a statement that Mr. Kushner “has met with hundreds of business people.” He said that Mr. Kushner “has taken no part of any business, loans or projects with or for” Kushner Companies since joining the White House and that he has followed ethics advice.

Christine Taylor, a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies, said Mr. Kushner’s White House role had not affected the company’s relationships with financial institutions. “Stories like these attempt to make insinuating connections that do not exist to disparage the financial institutions and companies involved,” she said.

An Apollo spokesman, Charles V. Zehren, said Mr. Harris was not involved in the decision to loan money to Kushner Companies. He said the loan “went through the firm’s standard approval process.”

A Citigroup spokeswoman, Danielle Romero-Apsilos, said Kushner Companies had been a bank client since before the election and that the relationship had no connection to Mr. Kushner’s White House role. She said Citigroup negotiated the 2017 loan with Kushner Companies’ business partner, a real estate developer.

Mr. Kushner’s tenure in the White House has been dogged by questions about conflicts of interest between his government work and his family business, in which he remains heavily invested. Mr. Kushner steers American policy in the Middle East, for example, but his family company continues to do deals with Israeli investors.

This blurring of lines is now a potential liability for Mr. Kushner, who recently lost his top-secret security clearance amid worries from some United States officials that foreign governments might try to gain influence with the White House by doing business with Mr. Kushner.

Investigators working for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election, have asked questions about Mr. Kushner’s interactions with potential investors from overseas, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Kushner’s firm has sought investments from the Chinese insurer Anbang and from the former prime minister of Qatar.

Mr. Mirijanian, the spokesman for Mr. Kushner’s lawyer, said that Mr. Mueller had not sought from the Kushner Companies or Mr. Kushner “any information or document concerning any business dealing either has had.”

Mr. Kushner resigned as chief executive of Kushner Companies when he joined the White House last January, and he sold a small portion of his stake in the company to a trust controlled by his mother.

But he retained the vast majority of his interest in Kushner Companies. His real estate holdings and other investments are worth as much as $761 million, according to government ethics filings. They are likely worth much more, because that estimate has his firm’s debt subtracted from the value of his holdings. The company has done at least $7 billion of deals in the past decade.

Public filings show that Mr. Kushner still owns part of the company that received the Apollo loan. The loan was used to refinance a Chicago skyscraper that is the Midwest headquarters for AT&T. Mr. Kushner also still holds a stake in the entity that owns the Brooklyn buildings and received the loan from Citigroup.

Federal ethics regulations restrict government employees from participating in some matters that involve companies with which the official is seeking “a business, contractual or other financial relationship that involves other than a routine consumer transaction.”

Mr. Fox, the ethics expert, said Mr. Kushner risked violating the regulations in his meetings with Citigroup and Apollo executives.

“Why does Jared have to take the meeting?” he asked. “Is there not somebody else who doesn’t have these financial entanglements who can brainstorm freely with these folks?”

The Trump administration no longer publicly discloses logs of visitors to the White House. In February, the White House settled litigation with Public Citizen, a nonprofit organization, and agreed to disclose some of that information.

Mr. Kushner has also met at the White House with Stephen A. Schwarzman, chief executive of the private equity firm Blackstone, which in the past has lent money to Kushner Companies for several projects, though all before the election. Until August, Mr. Schwarzman was the head of a White House business advisory council.

“Blackstone has not done any business with Kushner Companies since the election, nor has Steve ever discussed private business matters with Mr. Kushner,” said a Blackstone spokeswoman.

All of the executives who met with Mr. Kushner have lots to gain or lose in Washington.

Apollo has sought ways to benefit from the White House’s possible infrastructure plan. And its executives, including Mr. Harris, had tens of millions of dollars personally at stake in the tax overhaul that was making its way through Washington last year.

Citigroup, one of the country’s largest banks, is heavily regulated by federal agencies and, like other financial companies, is trying to get the government to relax its oversight of the industry.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 03:38 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Kushner’s Business Got Loans From Companies After White House Meetings

Apollo, the private equity firm, and Citigroup made large loans last year to the family real estate business of Jared Kushner, President Trump’s senior adviser.

[..]

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 23:09 schreef PippenScottie het volgende:
Trump zegt net ook achteloos dat de politie preventief wapens moet kunnen afpakken van Amerikaanse burgers.

Dat zal er bij de NRA/MAGA crowd lekker ingaan.

quote:

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has been investigating a period of time last summer when President Trump seemed determined to drive Attorney General Jeff Sessions from his job, according to people familiar with the matter who said that a key area of interest for the inquiry is whether those efforts were part of a months-long pattern of attempted obstruction of justice.

In recent months, Mueller’s team has questioned witnesses in detail about Trump’s private comments and state of mind in late July and early August of last year, around the time he issued a series of tweets belittling his “beleaguered” attorney general, these people said. The thrust of the questions was to determine whether the president’s goal was to oust Sessions in order to pick a replacement who would exercise control over the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Trump associates during the 2016 election, these people said.

quote:

Behind the scenes, Trump has derisively referred to Sessions as “Mr. Magoo,” a cartoon character who is elderly, myopic and bumbling, according to people with whom he has spoken. Trump has told associates that he has hired the best lawyers for his entire life, but is stuck with Sessions, who is not defending him and is not sufficiently loyal.

While Sessions has told associates he had been wounded by the attacks, he has also insisted he’s not going to resign, so the cold war continues.

On the anniversary of Sessions’s confirmation earlier this month, senior aides decided to buy Sessions a bulletproof vest with his name emblazoned on it as a gift, according to a person familiar with the matter.

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 23:23 schreef Nintex het volgende:
https://video.twimg.com/tweet_video/DXJtfnsX4AADOad.mp4

The resistance

twitter:

WardDPatrick twitterde op woensdag 28-02-2018 om 21:28:26 President Trump tells Senators he thinks police should have taken guns away from Nikolas Cruz, whether they had the right or not, "I don't want mentally ill people to be having guns." https://t.co/wU6L8ERlas reageer retweet

Trump dropping the truth bombs

Zei ook dat de GOP niet zo bang moest zijn voor de NRA

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 07:58 schreef DustPuppy het volgende:

[..]

Ben je nou echt zo achterlijk of wat?

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 20:59 schreef Nintex het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]
De blik van Hope zegt alles, Mueller heeft geen poot om op te staan.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 01:19 schreef Tchock het volgende:
Via Reddit: alle ontslagen en opgestapte leden van de regering-Trump tot nu toe. Belachelijk lange lijst

SPOILER

Trump Administration staff resigned or fired:

Gen Mike Flynn

Sally Yates, the acting attorney general

James Comey F.B.I. Director

Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of Manhattan

Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, and members of the State Department

Angella Reid, White House chief usher

Mike Dubke, White House communications director

Robert Iger, advisory council

Katie Walsh, deputy White House chief of staff

Derek Harvey, National Security Council

Walter Shaub, director of the Office of Government Ethics

Michael Short, White House press aide

Craig Deare, National Security Council senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs

K.T. MacFarland, deputy National Security Adviser

Rich Higgins, Director of Strategic Planning

Derek Harvey, Middle East adviser

Tera Dahl, Deputy Chief of Staff

Mark Corralo, the spokesman for President Donald Trump’s legal team,

Sean Spicer

Reince Priebus

Anthony Scaramucci

Ezra Cohen-Watnick intelligence directors of the National Security Council

Steve Bannon

Andy Hemmig-W.H. Rapid Response Director

Sebastian Gorka

William C. Bradford, head Energy Department's Office of Indian Energy

Keith Schiller, former Trump bodyguard, director of Oval Office operations

Chuck Rosenberg, acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration

Tom Price, Secretary of Health and Human Services

Dana Boente, U.S. attorney for Eastern District of Virginia

Sam Clovis, withdraws from nomination for USDA Science chief

Omarosa Manigault

Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser

David Lapan, Department of Homeland Security press secretary

Paul Winfree, the deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council

Teresa Manning, Health and Human Services Department and antiabortion activist

Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Rachel L. Brand, associate attorney general Justice Department

Rob Porter, staff secretary

David Sorensen, Trump Speechwriter

George David Banks, special assistant to the president for international energy and environmental policy

Josh Raffel, Ivanka and Jared Kushner’s spokesman

Hope Hicks, White House communications director

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 04:34 schreef PippenScottie het volgende:

[..]

In een dag van epische clusterfucks is dit met afstand het grootste schandaal.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 04:44 schreef Szura het volgende:
Trump’s tirades richting Sessions onder de loep van Mueller

https://www.washingtonpos(...)748f892c0_story.html

[..]

Uit hetzelfde stuk:

[..]

Oké dan
Het blijft een maffioso, Trump met z’n loyaliteit

quote:

Tienduizenden wapens in Australië ingeleverd, en een raketwerper (NOS)

In Australië zijn tienduizenden niet-geregistreerde vuurwapens ingeleverd. Als mensen dat vrijwillig deden binnen de speciale inleverperiode werden ze niet vervolgd.

In totaal werden 57.324 wapens ingeleverd, waaronder 2900 pistolen en 2500 mitrailleurs en semi-automatische wapens. Ook kwamen er behoorlijk wat bijzondere wapens binnen. Zo kwam iemand in Queensland met een heuse raketwerper aanzetten, werd er een Duits machinegeweer uit de Eerste Wereldoorlog in beslag genomen en werden er verschillende pistolen uit de negentiende eeuw ingeleverd.
Kritiek

Australië wil het aantal ongeregistreerde wapens dat in omloop is sterk verminderen. De roep om een inleveractie kwam voort uit een schietpartij waarbij een man in een café in Sydney in 2014 mensen gijzelde en twee gegijzelden doodschoot. De dader deed dat met een pistool dat niet was geregistreerd.

Critici denken echter dat de inleveractie het beoogde effect helemaal niet heeft bereikt. "De overheid zegt dat er wapens van de straat mee gehaald worden. De wapens die hier zijn ingeleverd, zijn nooit op de straat geweest. Het zijn de oude geweren van opa, die achterin een kast lagen of aan de wand hingen. Die zouden nooit bij een misdrijf worden gebruikt", verzucht een Australische senator.

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 22:32 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
https://mobile.twitter.com/byrdinator/status/968959790750814208

who’s excited to ask Republican senators if they agree with the Republican president that law enforcement should confiscate guns without regard for due process???

this gal

quote:

Republicans Gobsmacked by Trump's Gun Control Comments(The Weekly Standard)
The president suggested gun confiscation could come before due process in a televised bipartisan meeting with members of Congress.

SPOILER

During a televised bipartisan meeting to discuss gun control proposals with members of Congress on Wednesday, President Donald Trump split with conventional Republican wisdom and suggested that guns be confiscated from individuals who could pose safety threats before due process is carried out under the law.

Nebraska Republican Ben Sasse issued a statement rebuking those comments Wednesday night. “We’re not ditching any Constitutional protections simply because the last person the president talked to today doesn’t like them,” Sasse wrote.

Other Republican senators mostly distanced themselves from Trump’s statement.

“Ummm. I don’t know,” Senate Republican Conference chairman John Thune responded afterward. “I think that’d be hard to sell, based on the conversations our members have had.”

His colleagues argued that such a move by law enforcement would encroach upon constitutional rights. “I don’t ever believe there’s a time in this country where due process can be dismissed, period,” North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis told reporters. He suggested that Trump may not be familiar with the law—“he’s not a legal scholar”—and that he might not have meant what he said.

“I don't think that he was saying that there's a place where you suspend the Constitution and suspend due process. I just don't believe that," said Tillis. "I know you heard the words. I just don't believe in my heart of hearts that's exactly what he meant."

SPOILER

Trump’s comments came during a conversation about preventing gun violence in the aftermath of a February 14 mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead. Vice President Mike Pence spoke about gun violence restraining orders, mentioning an emphasis on allowing for due process, “so that no one’s rights are trampled.”

Trump quickly countered, “Or, Mike, take the firearms first and then go to court, because that's another system. Because a lot of times, by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due process procedures.”

“I like taking the guns early,” the president said shortly after. “So you could do exactly what you're saying, but take the guns first, go through due process second.”

During the meeting, Trump expressed support for a number of proposals supported by Democrats, such as universal background checks and raising the age to purchase rifles to 21 from 18. He also asserted numerous times that Republicans in Congress are afraid of the National Rifle Association.

Asked whether he supported Trump’s suggestion thatdue process could come after gun confiscation, Arizona Republican Jeff Flake was taken aback. “Uhh,” he said. “Well, any proposal we put forward respects due process, so ...”

Is the president just unfamiliar with Republican policy?

“I don’t know,” said Flake.

Louisiana Republican John Kennedy said he disagreed with Trump on the issue, but added that the president is entitled to hold such an opinion: “This is America.”

A senior GOP Senate aide told TWS that Republicans would have been “apoplectic” if Obama had said half of what Trump said during the meeting. “This is why you don’t do high-stakes, hot-button negotiation on live TV with someone who doesn’t know or care about details.”

SPOILER

Trump’s Wednesday meeting was reminiscent of a freewheeling January 9 meeting with lawmakers to discuss a path forward on protecting the Dreamers. That discussion appeared productive at first, with Trump promising to sign whatever immigration agreement Congress could come up with. He was open to a number of ideas, many of them supported by Democrats more so than Republicans. But the discussions fell apart soon afterward, when Trump changed his mind and shot down a bipartisan proposal to solve the problem.

After Wednesday’s gun control meeting, some lawmakers admitted they expected a reversal would come from the White House in the coming days. “At some point, someone will tell the president what he endorsed and it will be like the meeting never happened,” another senior Republican Senate aide predicted.

If that happens, Kennedy said he wouldn’t be concerned by Trump’s tendency to flip-flop. “It doesn’t bother me a bit when someone changes their opinion after thinking things through.”

Democrats said they were encouraged by Trump’s openness to new gun control measures, but most are bracing for an inevitable shift, too.

“I’m afraid what we’re going to see is an exact repeat of the pattern we saw before,” Delaware Democrat Chris Coons told reporters, referring to the failed DACA discussions. “I hope that he will recognize that this is an important moment for him to show genuine national leadership by embracing a strong bipartisan bill that could improve background checks and make Americans safer.”

Asked whether Trump has any credibility left when it comes to policy, considering his previous mixed messages and conflicting statements, Coons said this time around would be revealing.

“If he does it again, where he has a televised, bipartisan positive meeting, and then reverses course almost immediately, I think he’ll lose all credibility,” said Coons.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 07:58 schreef DustPuppy het volgende:

[..]

Nadat ie vorig jaar een wet heeft afgeschaft die juist moest voorkomen dat mensen met een psychiatrisch verleden makkelijk aan een wapen konden komen.

Ben je nou echt zo achterlijk of wat?

twitter:

redneckin357 twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 02:25:25 @paulalenbeck @realDonaldTrump The RIGHT to the gun so I CAN live, COMMIECRAT! NO BANS ON ANYTHING, EVER! reageer retweet

twitter:

scentedwildrose twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 06:07:43 Now all millennials are googling "Mr. Magoo" 😂😂😂 reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 20:59 schreef Nintex het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]
De blik van Hope zegt alles, Mueller heeft geen poot om op te staan.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 12:53:58 Many ideas, some good & some not so good, emerged from our bipartisan meeting on school safety yesterday at the White House. Background Checks a big part of conversation. Gun free zones are proven targets of killers. After many years, a Bill should emerge. Respect 2nd Amendment! reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 20:59 schreef Nintex het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]
De blik van Hope zegt alles, Mueller heeft geen poot om op te staan.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 10:29 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

twitter:

redneckin357 twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 02:25:25 @paulalenbeck @realDonaldTrump The RIGHT to the gun so I CAN live, COMMIECRAT! NO BANS ON ANYTHING, EVER! reageer retweet

Not sure if serious......

quote:

Op woensdag 28 februari 2018 23:35 schreef Ringo het volgende:
Kortom, ouwe pulpkop lult maar een eind weg, dag één dit, dag twee dat, naar hoe de wind waait. Als zijn kuif maar goed zit.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 02:05 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

twitter:

AP_Images twitterde op woensdag 28-02-2018 om 21:00:19 Worshippers clutching AR-15 rifles and some wearing bullet crowns, participated in a commitment ceremony today at World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, in Newfoundland, Pa. The event led a nearby school to cancel classes for the day. Photos @jacquelinelarma https://t.co/GXzrZeK41z reageer retweet

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 12:57 schreef Re het volgende:
goed moment uitgekozen om haar toekomstige carriere nog te redden

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realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 13:12:42 Our Steel and Aluminum industries (and many others) have been decimated by decades of unfair trade and bad policy with countries from around the world. We must not let our country, companies and workers be taken advantage of any longer. We want free, fair and SMART TRADE! reageer retweet

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 13:25 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 13:12:42 Our Steel and Aluminum industries (and many others) have been decimated by decades of unfair trade and bad policy with countries from around the world. We must not let our country, companies and workers be taken advantage of any longer. We want free, fair and SMART TRADE! reageer retweet

Je moet slim handel drijven.

Ik dacht gewoon dat je verkocht wal je wil verkopen en koopt wat je nodig hebt, maar blijkbaar is het anders.

Ik wil dat ook gaan doen. Ik heb namelijk ook een ontzettend negatieve handelsbalans met de Albert Heijn. Ik moet slimmer handelen.

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 13:27 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

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lidl FTW

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 13:32 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Maar ik koop meer bij de supermarkt dan dat de supermarkt bij mij afneemt. Dat is unfair.

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 13:34 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

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wat heb je dan zoal te koop?

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 13:34 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Kolen.

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 13:34 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Kolen.

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 12:57 schreef Re het volgende:
goed moment uitgekozen om haar toekomstige carriere nog te redden

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 15:54 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Vond dit wel een interessante overzichtje over de komende gouverneursverkiezingen wat voorbij kwam:

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Die 3 republikeinse populaire governors in Massachusetts, Maryland en Vermont vind ik wel opvallend.

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 00:12 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
[ afbeelding ][ afbeelding ]

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After a crazy 24 hours, sources close to President Trump say he is in a bad place — mad as hell about the internal chaos and the sense that things are unraveling.

The big picture: Hope Hicks leaving is obviously a huge blow to him. Every time he reads about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his head explodes. The staff is just trying to ride out the storm.

Everywhere you look inside this White House, top officials are fighting, fomenting, feuding or fleeing, insiders say in conversations with us.

• Hope Hicks — without question, the aide (family aside) with whom Trump is closest — resigned one day after she admitted in closed-door Hill testimony that she told white lies for the president.

• White House Chief of Staff John Kelly cracked down on Jared Kushner, stripping his top security clearance, and watching anonymous aides leak about and trash him, while offering no public defense of the president’s son-in-law.

• Jared, Ivanka and Don Jr. let it be known to friends they are furious with Kelly and his allies.

• Jared loses his internal P.R. guru, Josh Raffel, when he needs him most.

• Economic adviser Gary Cohn is at war with trade policy adviser Peter Navarro.

• Trump is at war with Attorney General Sessions. ... N.Y. Times lead story: "Trump Tears Into Sessions Over Russia Investigation." ... WashPost: "Behind the scenes, Trump has derisively referred to Sessions as 'Mr. Magoo,' a cartoon character who is elderly, myopic and bumbling."

• Intelligence chiefs use every chance possible to contradict the commander-in-chief on Russia.

Be smart: Trump is in a bad, mad place, feeling ill-served and confined by staff. The people he genuinely enjoys and feels close to are gone (Keith Schiller), leaving (Hope) or getting pounded in the press (Jared).

• The restraints are almost fully loosened, and what staff sees in private is more public than ever.

• We have never seen top officials this concerned, defeated.

SPOILER

Herinnert U zich deze nog?

Trump says his administration is 'running like a fine-tuned machine'

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A political appointee at the Department of Interior resigned Wednesday after CNN's KFile flagged inflammatory comments she made on Facebook and Twitter.

Christine Bauserman, a former Republican activist in Arizona who also worked for President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, served as a special assistant to Secretary Ryan Zinke, providing him operational support that included coordinating policy briefings. Bauserman initially joined the administration as a member of the so-called "beachhead teams," which consisted of advisers tasked with shaping Trump's new administration.

A KFile review found that Bauserman repeatedly shared conspiracy theories, made anti-Muslim comments and shared anti-LGBT sentiments on social media.

"The positions expressed by Ms. Bauserman are inappropriate and unacceptable, and they are not consistent with those of the Secretary or the Trump Administration. The Department has accepted Ms. Bauserman's letter of resignation," Heather Swift, a spokeswoman for Department of the Interior, told CNN in a statement.

Bauserman did not return a request for comment. She has now restricted access to her Facebook and Twitter accounts.

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 17:32 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Political appointee at Interior resigns after KFile inquiry into birther, anti-Muslim comments

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In 2000, Melania Knauss, a Slovenian model dating Donald Trump, began petitioning the government for the right to permanently reside in the United States under a program reserved for people with “extraordinary ability.”

Knauss’s credentials included runway shows in Europe, a Camel cigarette billboard ad in Times Square and — in her biggest job at the time — a spot in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, which featured her on the beach in a string bikini, hugging a six-foot inflatable whale.

In March 2001, she was granted a green card in the elite EB-1 program, which was designed for renowned academic researchers, multinational business executives or those in other fields, such as Olympic athletes and Oscar-winning actors, who demonstrated “sustained national and international acclaim.”

SPOILER

“We called it the Einstein visa,” said Bruce Morrison, a former Democratic congressman and chairman of the House subcommittee that wrote the Immigration Act of 1990 defining EB-1.

The year that Knauss — now first lady Melania Trump — got her legal residency, only five people from Slovenia received green cards under the EB-1 program, according to the State Department.

In all, of the more than one million green cards issued in 2001, just 3,376 — or a fraction of one percent — were issued to immigrants with “extraordinary ability,” according to government statistics.

Melania Trump’s ability to secure her green card not only set her on the path to U.S. citizenship, but put her in the position to sponsor the legal residency of her parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that the couple is now close to obtaining their own citizenship.

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 17:43 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
Weet dat we niet mogen roddelen, maar hebben jullie dat krankzinnige Cabal-topic al gezien in BNW?

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 18:16 schreef J.B. het volgende:

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Goeie tip dit

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NatashaBertrand twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 18:05:46 “In January, one of Mr. Nunes’s staff members”—oh?—“requested that copies [of Warner’s texts] be shared with the House committee as well” https://t.co/42OuYtLlNa reageer retweet

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The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee were behind the leak of private text messages between the Senate panel’s top Democrat and a Russian-connected lawyer, according to two congressional officials briefed on the matter.

Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the committee’s Republican chairman, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat, were so perturbed by the leak that they demanded a rare meeting with Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month to inform him of their findings. They used the meeting with Mr. Ryan to raise broader concerns about the direction of the House Intelligence Committee under its chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, the officials said.

To the senators, who are overseeing what is effectively the last bipartisan investigation on Capitol Hill into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the leak was a serious breach of protocol and a partisan attack by one intelligence committee against the other.

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twitter:

morningmoneyben twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 18:34:24 25% steel tariffs10% aluminum tariffsto be formally announced next week. remarkable. Do the free traders stick around at this point? reageer retweet

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 13:25 schreef Ulx het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 13:12:42 Our Steel and Aluminum industries (and many others) have been decimated by decades of unfair trade and bad policy with countries from around the world. We must not let our country, companies and workers be taken advantage of any longer. We want free, fair and SMART TRADE! reageer retweet

Je moet slim handel drijven.

Ik dacht gewoon dat je verkocht wal je wil verkopen en koopt wat je nodig hebt, maar blijkbaar is het anders.

Ik wil dat ook gaan doen. Ik heb namelijk ook een ontzettend negatieve handelsbalans met de Albert Heijn. Ik moet slimmer handelen.

twitter:

kaylatausche twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 18:31:25 NEWS from pool spray: TRUMP SAYS U.S. WILL SET TARIFFS OF 25 PCT FOR STEEL AND 10 PERCENT FOR ALUMINUM reageer retweet

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 17:44 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Questions linger about how Melania Trump, a Slovenian model, scored ‘the Einstein visa’

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 18:42 schreef AnneX het volgende:

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En haar zus ? Ik vroeg het mij al eens af, ja.

Tis en blijft een zootje. What else is new...

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 17:43 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
Weet dat we niet mogen roddelen, maar hebben jullie dat krankzinnige Cabal-topic al gezien in BNW?

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 18:55 schreef Knipoogje het volgende:

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Ik snap het nooit zo. Als conspiracy theorist zou je toch spontaan klaarkomen van 'gestolen' verkiezingen, een met Russen heulende president, een prachtig netwerk aan vriendjespolitiek en scores aan schimmige deals en contacten over de hele wereld, verspreid over decennia.
Maar dat is blijkbaar geen interessant topic in BNW? Stel dat je alle beproefde ik-trek-lijntjes-tussen-ongerelateerde-zaken uitvoert op het Trump imperium. Dat moet toch welhaast orgastisch zijn? Ik snap het echt niet 😂

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 17:43 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
hebben jullie dat krankzinnige Cabal-topic al gezien in BNW?

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 18:50 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

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Geen idee, ik wist niet eens dat er nog een zus was

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 18:39 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Daar gaan we weer...

twitter:

morningmoneyben twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 18:34:24 25% steel tariffs10% aluminum tariffsto be formally announced next week. remarkable. Do the free traders stick around at this point? reageer retweet

Vorige keer onder Bush krabbelden ze terug.

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 18:55 schreef Knipoogje het volgende:

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Ik snap het nooit zo. Als conspiracy theorist zou je toch spontaan klaarkomen van 'gestolen' verkiezingen, een met Russen heulende president, een prachtig netwerk aan vriendjespolitiek en scores aan schimmige deals en contacten over de hele wereld, verspreid over decennia.
Maar dat is blijkbaar geen interessant topic in BNW? Stel dat je alle beproefde ik-trek-lijntjes-tussen-ongerelateerde-zaken uitvoert op het Trump imperium. Dat moet toch welhaast orgastisch zijn? Ik snap het echt niet 😂

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 19:20 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

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Grappig verhaal; ik heb vernomen dat de USTR eerst 24% had voorgesteld, maar Trump dat heeft afgekeurd omdat het geen rond getal was.

EU is al bezig met countermeasures dus als Trump hier daadwerkelijk mee doorgaat en het geen natte scheet blijkt, krijgen we een handelsoorlog.

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 19:26 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

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Ben benieuwd wat er gaat gebeuren.

Van wat ik me herinner werd het de vorige keer geëscaleerd via de WTO, wat de VS verloor en negeerde waarop de EU dreigde om importheffingen in te stellen op specifieke producten uit swing-states. Daarna krabbelde de VS terug. Deze zwakheid in het Amerikaanse systeem zit er nogsteeds in, dus zou het me niks verbazen als we weer op een dergelijke manier terug gaan/dreigen te slaan.

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 18:39 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Daar gaan we weer...

twitter:

morningmoneyben twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 18:34:24 25% steel tariffs10% aluminum tariffsto be formally announced next week. remarkable. Do the free traders stick around at this point? reageer retweet

Vorige keer onder Bush krabbelden ze terug.

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 19:53 schreef Perrin het volgende:
Trump verbijstert Republikeinen met harde kritiek op wapenlobby: 'Jullie zijn doodsbang voor de NRA'

Trump

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 19:53 schreef Perrin het volgende:
Trump verbijstert Republikeinen met harde kritiek op wapenlobby: 'Jullie zijn doodsbang voor de NRA'

Trump

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Trump’s net neutrality blunder is alarming for US foreign policy

It appears that no one with access to President Trump informed him that the death of net neutrality would reward the parent company of Saturday Night Live, Comcast. This is concerning because the United States needs advisors around President Trump who know and can inform the president when there is a comparatively harmless opportunity for him to hit back at his political opponents, so that he trusts his advisors when confronted with issues such as averting nuclear war with North Korea.

With the Federal Communications Commission’s final rule killing net neutrality published in the Federal Register, the largest cable companies, Comcast and Charter, are one step closer to receiving a financial windfall — not for inventing the next internet but for controlling access to the current one. The demise of net neutrality will allow cable companies to charge content providers legal ransom in exchange for not slowing down the delivery of videos and articles.

To be fair, if the rule ultimately goes into effect, Comcast and Charter would not immediately charge outrageous sums to content providers, for fear of backlash; rather, they could increase fees and reduce speeds of competing media outlets strategically over time.



There are good reasons for Republicans to support net neutrality — e.g., it levels the playing field for start-ups against incumbents. There also are politically strategic reasons for Republicans to endorse net neutrality, since it does not allow for indirect censorship of political ideas. Numerous liberal media organizations are owned by major service providers, which will be able to favor their own content, while Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and other conservative media are noticeably not owned by a giant cable or wireless provider. If Republicans realized the importance of such disparity in vertical integration of service providers owning content providers, they surely would not support a policy position that hurts news outlets sympathetic to their party.

Notwithstanding philosophical and politically strategic justifications, there are personal reasons why Trump, in particular, should favor net neutrality, given his antagonistic relationship to Saturday Night Live — a show that employed a writer who insulted his young son — and his hate-affair with CNN. It might seem like pointing this out to the president would be a matter of encouraging the worst of him instead of playing to his better instincts. It is. Yet let us not forget a variation on Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz’s famous quip: politics is the continuation of war by other means.

If no one informed Trump that Comcast, the largest cable provider and owner of MSNBC and SNL, and Charter, the second largest cable company and owner of CNN, would benefit from the demise of net neutrality, then that is a worrying sign for national security. It means that either President Trump’s advisors do not understand the subtleties and political reality of policymaking, or they are keeping the president in the dark, perhaps for their own political advantage, for the presumed benefit of the public, or to avoid suffering his wrath. This has happened before. For example, after Harry Truman was thrust into the presidency with the death of Franklin Roosevelt, his advisors took almost two weeks after he was sworn in to brief him on the U.S. atomic bomb program during the height of World War II.

Putting aside the ethical question of whether Trump should have prevented the FCC from voting to dismantle net neutrality in order to revenge himself on a media company and the administrative consideration of how much oversight an executive has over an independent agency, there are times when a president’s closest advisors need to show their loyalty to the president to allow him to decide if he wants to extract a pound of flesh so that he trusts them with more existential threats. To give maximum leverage to the senior military and national security advisors to prevent mutually assured destruction, or at least devastation against masses, they need to be supported by Trump’s advisors in every other public policy area.

All presidents are managed to a certain extent. Such handling should be welcome by executives, assuming they can trust their advisors. Filling the vacant high-level policy positions within the executive branch with a mix of advisors with varying degrees of political experience is a good first step. This is a fix that lobbyists allegedly have been resistant to, given that a void enables them to push through policy that sometimes harms the political party in charge.

President Trump needs to end his isolation that puts the country at peril and allows “fake news” media executives to sip champagne at his expense.

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President Donald Trump said he would impose steep global tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, intensifying his campaign to pursue a newly aggressive “America First” trade policy.

Mr. Trump announced the plans—tariffs of 25% on imported steel and 10% on imported aluminum—on Thursday at a White House meeting with 15 executives from what he labeled bedrock American industries.

SPOILER

“You’re going to see a lot of good things happen. You’re going to see expansion of the companies,” the president said, adding that the trade curbs would provide protection “for a long period.”

He said the move—which was criticized by some U.S. manufacturers and free-trade advocates—is necessary due to what he described as a trade imbalance benefiting other countries. “When it comes to a time when our country can’t make aluminum and steel, you almost don’t have much of a country,” he added.

Mr. Trump justified the tariffs by invoking a little-used Cold War era law that gives presidents broad discretion to curb imports deemed a threat to “national security.” The announcement was based on studies conducted by the Commerce Department, made public last month, which concluded metals imports had eroded the country’s ability to make its own weapons, tanks, and aircraft. But it came over the objections of Mr. Trump’s own Defense Department, which cautioned against a backlash from close allies like Canada and Japan.

Mr. Trump’s announcement came over the objections of some of his top advisers, and surprised many in the White House who first learned of the plans from news reports Wednesday night.

As a sign of how eager the president was to take big action, he chose the toughest of the three options presented to him by Commerce, which had also outlined a more targeted approach aimed only at certain countries. Officials didn’t provide any further immediate details, and Mr. Trump said he wouldn’t sign the formal order until next week. Officials have said that companies and countries could over the next few weeks petition for exemptions to the new policies.

Shares of steel and aluminum makers swung wildly from their open on Thursday, moving sharply higher in early trading in anticipation of a tariff announcement, Stocks plunged when word reached Wall Street that Thursday’s meeting might not include a tariff announcement. Stocks soared again when the president revealed his plans.

While the executives meeting the president cheered the move, it drew swift criticism from other industries and economists warning of sharp cost increases among users of the metals, and retaliation from trading partners.



Trump Will Approve Aluminum, Steel Tariffs Next Week

“The tariffs announced today will be detrimental to the motor vehicle parts supplier industry and the 871,000 U.S. jobs it directly creates,” said Steve Handschuh, head of the Motor Equipment Manufacturers Association. “Tariffs limit access to necessary specialty products, raise the cost of motor vehicles to consumers, and impair the industry’s ability to compete in the global marketplace.”

Eswar Prasad, a Cornell economist said the moves “herald a declaration of open war on major trading partners and undercut the multilateral trading system.”

The new tariffs underscore Mr. Trump’s pivot in his second year in office to reorient decades of American policies aimed at expanding free trade and globalization. The steel and aluminum protections come a month after the White House unveiled similar tariffs and quotas on solar panels and washing machines, invoking a different little-used 1974 trade law allowing U.S. industries to seek sweeping protection if they can show significant injury from a sudden surge in foreign competition.

Trump aides are also weighing a broad package of trade and investment penalties against China, as they complete a detailed study accusing Beijing of widespread theft and expropriation of American intellectual property. Thursday’s decision on steel and aluminum is aimed in particular at China, whose overcapacity in those industries has fueled a global glut hampering American producers.

The announcement appeared to be a diplomatic jab at President Xi Jinping, coming the same day his top economic adviser was meeting at the White House with the Trump economic team to try to ease trade tensions.

The new tariffs seem to reflect rising power inside the Trump administration of his economic nationalist aides, who have tangled over the past year with his more globalist free-trade oriented advisers. The infighting was evident Wednesday night, with some officials insisting a decision was imminent and others saying it was still being deliberated.

Peter Navarro, an economist who crafted much of Mr. Trump’s protectionist 2016 campaign platform, is slated for a promotion giving him a greater voice in internal debates, after staff secretary Rob Porter, a free-trade Republican aide tasked overseeing coordination of trade policy, was forced out in a spousal abuse scandal.

But confusion lingered surrounding the policy. One of the executives at meeting with Mr. Trump, Nucor Corp. Chief Executive John Ferriola, said he understood that more discussions were needed to finalize aspects of the new policy and that “no decision has been made on how long they will last.” Still, Mr. Ferriola said that he left the White House “very confident that something will happen and it will happen very quickly.”

Many congressional Democrats and labor unions are likely to cheer the steel and aluminum decisions, which they had long advocated.

“This welcome action is long overdue for shuttered steel plants across Ohio,” said Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who has been working closely with Mr. Trump and his trade team to craft such new policies.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that his 2016 campaign pledge for greater steel protection won him the presidency, and his U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, talks of tougher trade policies creating a “new coalition” in support of trade, by winning over Democrats who have grown increasingly hostile to globalization over the past quarter-century. Mr. Trump is hoping to solidify his political base in advance of midterm congressional elections this year, and the announcement comes ahead of a March 13 special House contest in Pennsylvania steel country.

But the decision is likely to open a rift between the White House and traditional free-trade Republicans in Congress, who have become increasingly vocal in recent weeks urging Mr. Trump to avoid taking such action.

“Let’s be clear: the president is proposing a massive tax increase on American families,” Nebraska GOP Sen. Ben Sasse said. “You’d expect a policy this bad from a leftist administration, not a supposedly Republican one.”

The decision also quickly drew complaints from allies and trading partners, who have repeatedly warned that such action could prompt them to retaliate.

Tadaaki Yamaguchi, chairman of the Japan Steel Information center, blasted the policies as “ill-advised and naive,” and warned that “it will inevitably invite retaliation from America’s most reliable allies, ultimately hurting American nonmanufacturing industries as well.”

Representatives from a long list of countries, from Mexico to Brazil to South Korea have traveled to Washington in recent days in anticipation of the decision, seeking to have their industries spared.

twitter:

arogDC twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 20:44:16 Sen Hatch statement: “Tariffs on steel and aluminum are a tax hike the American people don’t need and can’t afford. I encourage the president to carefully consider all of the implications of raising the cost of steel and aluminum on American manufacturers and consumers.” reageer retweet

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kaylatausche twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 19:59:14 I'm told Cohn argued against tariffs in today's meeting. Argument was warned about higher prices, not a trade war. Trump's reaction, per a person in the room: That's "not the real world," and that result would be a "small price to pay" reageer retweet

twitter:

kaylatausche twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 20:17:32 ALSO: Trump told executives today the decision's been made, but the paperwork isn't done. Person in the room said Trump then turned to McGahn and said, "We're going to get those papers done, Don?" reageer retweet

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 20:10 schreef livelink het volgende:
Hoe zit het trouwens met die government shutdown? 5 maart moet er toch een akkoord zijn? Ik heb het nieuws daarover even gemist.

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 21:31 schreef Szura het volgende:
Ah weer een Nontexje, eens zien of Cohn ook over een paar uur weg is net als Hicks

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L0gg0l twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 21:19:34 Hearing Gary Cohn objected to Trump tariff decision in the meeting today (because of higher prices). Trump reacted "not the real world", "small price to pay". via @kaylatauscheQuite likely that Cohn resigns as consequence reageer retweet

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 21:31 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

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Volgens mij hebben ze laatst eindelijk een langetermijnbegroting afgesproken ?

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Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 19:39 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

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Dat zullen ze nu ook zeker doen.

Het stomme is, bij het schetsen van het probleem heeft Trump gewoon een punt. De Chinese staal en aluminium industrie draait op een bizarre overcapaciteit met lagere prijzen tot gevolg. Dit is alleen niet de oplossing.

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The EU plans to hit back at Trump's trade tariffs with 'countermeasures' targeting US goods (BusinessInsider / TheIndependent)

• The European Union plans to respond to Donald Trump's new trade tariffs with trade "countermeasures."
• The retaliatory policies will be announced in the next few days, after the US president slapped tariffs on imported steel and aluminium.
• European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said the tariffs are "a blatant intervention to protect US domestic industry."

The European Union has said it will impose trade “countermeasures” against American goods in retaliation to Donald Trump’s new tariffs on imported steel and aluminium.

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said retaliatory policies would be announced “in the next few days” in order to “rebalance” the trade situation between European and the US following the move by Mr Trump.

The US president said on Thursday he would introduce a 25 per cent import tariff on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium, claiming that the US had been suffering from “unfair trade”.

“We strongly regret this step, which appears to represent a blatant intervention to protect US domestic industry and not to be based on any national security justification. Protectionism cannot be the answer to our common problem in the steel sector,” Mr Juncker said on Thursday evening.

“Instead of providing a solution, this move can only aggravate matters. The EU has been a close security ally of the US for decades.

“We will not sit idly while our industry is hit with unfair measures that put thousands of European jobs at risk. I had the occasion to say that the EU would react adequately and that's what we will do.

“The EU will react firmly and commensurately to defend our interests. The Commission will bring forward in the next few days a proposal for WTO-compatible countermeasures against the US to rebalance the situation."

Europe’s Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said the measures would “have a negative impact on transatlantic relations” and “will raise costs and reduce choice for US consumers of steel and aluminium, including industries that import these commodities”.

She said the EU would raise a dispute at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva over the tariffs “at the earliest opportunity”.

In what appears to be a veiled reference to Chinese steel production, the Commissioner added that “the root cause of problems in these two sectors is global overcapacity caused by non-market based production”.

During his presidential campaign Mr Trump claimed foreign countries were “dumping vast amounts of steel all over the United States, which essentially is killing our steelworkers and steel companies”.

He also said in January of this year that he had “a lot of problems” with European Union trade policy.

Last month Mr Trump also slapped “America First” tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels, moves that most heavily affected China and South Korea.

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U.S. ambassador to Mexico stepping down

The Mexican news organization Reforma has reported that the White House may nominate Ed Whitacre, the former CEO of General Motors and AT&T, to replace Roberta Jacobson.

The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Roberta Jacobson, is resigning from the post, the latest in a string of high-profile departures from the State Department and one that could further complicate the U.S.-Mexico relationship amid lingering tensions over immigration, trade and other sensitive subjects.

In a memo sent to her staff and obtained by POLITICO, Jacobson wrote that her decision to leave, effective May 5, was "difficult," and she acknowledged that it comes at a "crucial moment." But she didn't say why exactly she'd decided to quit despite those things.

As an example of how acrimonious ties have become: Just recently, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto scrapped a planned visit to the United States, reportedly after a tense phone call with President Donald Trump in which the U.S. leader refused to publicly affirm Mexico's position that it would not pay for a border wall.

The Trump administration was already considering replacing Jacobson, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. The Mexican news organization Reforma has reported that Ed Whitacre, the former CEO of General Motors and AT&T, is the expected nominee, but the administration has not made an official announcement about its choice. The New York Times first reported Jacobson's plan to leave.

In her memo, Jacobson praised the work of the people at the U.S. mission in Mexico, but said that after 31 years of government service, "it is the right time to move on to new challenges and adventures."

"This decision is all the more difficult because of my profound belief in the importance of the U.S.-Mexico relationship and knowledge that it is at a crucial moment," she wrote. "One of the things that makes it easier is knowing that all of you will continue to do your usual outstanding work in ensuring that the relationship grows and prospers."

SPOILER

She also noted the importance of maintaining a good relationship between the two neighboring countries, a possible allusion to the unhealthy status quo. "You have respected everyone you came in contact with — Mexican, American, or from anywhere else, reflecting the better angels of our nature," Jacobson wrote to the staff. "You know how great our two countries are. And that we are stronger together."

Jacobson is highly regarded in Mexico and in U.S. diplomatic circles. She has been a career Civil Service officer, which made her road to an ambassadorship rather unusual. Such posts, when not given to outside political hires as a perk of supporting a presidential campaign, typically go to career Foreign Service officers.

Still, under Trump, the State Department has at times been marginalized in discussions involving Mexico, with Mexican leaders preferring to deal with the White House directly. Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and adviser, has been especially involved in the U.S.-Mexico portfolio.

Mexico is considered a very important ambassadorship because the country is one of America's largest trading partners. Because of Trump's particularly nasty relationship with the Mexican leadership, confirmation hearings for an incoming U.S. ambassador to Mexico could be very contentious.

Jacobson's own wait for confirmation as ambassador was held up for months by lawmakers unhappy with the Obama administration's decision to resume diplomatic ties with Cuba. She was confirmed in April 2016. As a former assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Jacobson played a major role in the Cuba-U.S. rapprochement.

Trump has demanded a wall be built along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants and that Mexico pay for it. His administration is also engaged in talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, a pact that Trump repeatedly slammed on the campaign trail -- during which he also described undocumented Mexican migrants as potential criminals and rapists.

Jacobson is one of several high-profile State Department officials to announce their decision to leave in recent months. Earlier this week, Joseph Yun, the special envoy for North Korean issues, announcement his imminent retirement. Thomas Shannon, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, has also said he will step down once his replacement is ready.

Jacobson's departure will increase concerns among U.S. lawmakers and others that the State Department is being gutted under Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has failed to fill numerous leadership positions in his 13 months at the helm and also sought to trim staff.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 19:55 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Is dat om strategische redenen of is het puur om handelsredenen?

quote:

Afgezien van een reductie in handel vraag ik me wat de uitwerking zal zijn. Waar het wellicht gunstig uitpakt voor de industrieën die extra bescherming krijgen, kan het juist negatief uitpakken voor andere sectoren zoals de auto-industrie en de bouw die hun materiaalkosten zien stijgen. Voor bedrijven met een internationele positie betekent dat dan weer een verslechterde concurrentiepositie en sowieso is de kans aanzienlijk dat de hogere kosten uiteindelijk ook op het bordje van de consument terecht komen.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 22:32 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Wie het weet mag het zeggen. Aan de ene kant begrijp ik dat China en India hun staalindustrie bevoordelen vanuit de staat, waarmee je best kunt beargumenteren dat er een handelsreden is om iets als dit te doen. Echter lijkt het een globaal importtarief te betreffen, wat daar niet mee strookt. Daarbij was Trump klaarblijkelijk geadviseerd om het niet te doen, wil hij het toch doen, dus dan kun je het beste met de fluisteraar spreken die hiervoor is.. I guess, ervanuitgaande dat hij geen originele gedachte heeft.

[..]

Persoonlijk ben ik meer geïnteresseerd in de afgeleide uitwerkingen, zoals wat de reacties vanuit de EU, China en India zullen zijn en hun uitwerkingen. Hoe dan ook, was het effect van marktbeschermende maatregelen onder Bush & Obama klaarblijkelijk negatief voor de werkloosheid. Althans, dat las ik op een forum ergens ... weet niet meer precies waar, dus neem het met een korrel zout.

quote:

The White House is preparing to replace H.R. McMaster as national security adviser as early as next month in a move orchestrated by chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis, according to five people familiar with the discussions.

The move would be the latest in a long string of staff shakeups at the White House over the past year and comes after months of strained relations between the president and McMaster.

...

But his tenure has been rocky. There have been staff shake-ups, questions about McMaster’s decision to voice political positions while still in uniform, and public disagreements with Trump.

Most recently, McMaster told a forum in Germany that Russian meddling in the election was "incontrovertible," a comment that drew a quick rebuke from the president.

“General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

quote:

A leading candidate to become President Donald Trump’s third national security adviser is the auto industry executive Stephen Biegun, according to the officials.

Biegun, who currently serves as vice president of international governmental affairs for the Ford Motor Company, is no stranger to the White House. He served on the National Security Council staff from 2001 to 2003, including as a senior staffer for then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

quote:

From 1992 to 1994, Mr. Biegun served in Moscow, Russia as the Resident Director in the Russian Federation for the International Republican Institute, a democracy-building organization established under the National Endowment for Democracy.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 20:07 schreef livelink het volgende:

[..]

Dit was hetzelfde wat hij deed toen het over DACA ging. Kom met een bipartisan voorstel en ik teken het. Maar dat doet hij dan uiteindelijk niet. Ik maak me nog geen illusies.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 22:37 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]

Dit is het verhaal van Obama's interventie, eindresultaat was verlies van banen en hoge kosten:

http://money.cnn.com/2017(...)re-tariff/index.html

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 22:32 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Wie het weet mag het zeggen. Aan de ene kant begrijp ik dat China en India hun staalindustrie bevoordelen vanuit de staat, waarmee je best kunt beargumenteren dat er een handelsreden is om iets als dit te doen. Echter lijkt het een globaal importtarief te betreffen, wat daar niet mee strookt. Daarbij was Trump klaarblijkelijk geadviseerd om het niet te doen, wil hij het toch doen, dus dan kun je het beste met de fluisteraar spreken die hiervoor is.. I guess, ervanuitgaande dat hij geen originele gedachte heeft.

quote:

[..]

Persoonlijk ben ik meer geïnteresseerd in de afgeleide uitwerkingen, zoals wat de reacties vanuit de EU, China en India zullen zijn en hun uitwerkingen. Hoe dan ook, was het effect van marktbeschermende maatregelen onder Bush & Obama klaarblijkelijk negatief voor de werkloosheid. Althans, dat las ik op een forum ergens ... weet niet meer precies waar, dus neem het met een korrel zout.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 22:40 schreef speknek het volgende:
McMaster McExit

[..]


[..]


[..]

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Mueller eyes charges against Russians who stole, spread Democrats’ emails (NBC News)

WASHINGTON — Special Counsel Robert Mueller is assembling a case for criminal charges against Russians who carried out the hacking and leaking of private information designed to hurt Democrats in the 2016 election, multiple current and former government officials familiar with the matter tell NBC News.

Much like the indictment Mueller filed last month charging a different group of Russians in a social media trolling and illegal-ad-buying scheme, the possible new charges are expected to rely heavily on secret intelligence gathered by the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), several of the officials say.

SPOILER

Mueller's consideration of charges accusing Russians in the hacking case has not been reported previously. Sources say he has long had sufficient evidence to make a case, but strategic issues could dictate the timing. Potential charges include violations of statutes on conspiracy, election law as well as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. One U.S. official briefed on the matter said the charges are not imminent, but other knowledgeable sources said they are expected in the next few weeks or months. It's also possible Mueller opts not to move forward because of concerns about exposing intelligence or other reasons — or that he files the indictment under seal, so the public doesn't see it initially.

The sources say the possible new indictment — or more than one, if that's how Mueller's office decides to proceed — would delve into the details of, and the people behind, the Russian intelligence operation that used hackers to penetrate computer networks and steal emails of both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The release of embarrassing Democratic emails through WikiLeaks became a prominent feature in the 2016 presidential election, cited at least 145 times by Republican candidate Donald Trump in the final month of the campaign. At one point he publicly urged "Russia" to find and release emails Trump believed were missing from Democrat Hillary Clinton's private server.

DHS and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a joint statement in the month before the 2016 election saying officials were "confident that the Russian government directed the recent compromises" that led to leaked emails being published by DCLeaks.com, WikiLeaks and an online persona known as Guccifer 2.0. — all considered to have been acting as Russian agents.

No criminal charges have been filed, however. In July 2016 the FBI began a counterintelligence investigation into how the Russians carried out the operation and whether any Americans, including members of the Trump campaign, were involved. Mueller took over the probe in May 2017. His office has filed more than 100 criminal charges against 19 people and three companies, securing guilty pleas and cooperation agreements from three members of the Trump campaign.

It is unlikely that the United States would be able to extradite alleged Russian hackers or their paymasters, but an indictment would "send a signal" both to Russia and to any Americans who may have participated, a government official said. In 2014, the Justice Department filed charges against five Chinese military hackers, accusing them of economic espionage. In 2016, authorities indicted seven hackers associated with the government of Iran, accusing them of hacking into bank websites and a computer system that controlled a small New York state dam. None of the accused in either case are in custody.

It could not be learned to what extent, if at all, Mueller's office would make allegations in the possible indictments about the role of Russian president Vladimir Putin in ordering and supervising the operation. NBC News has reported that U.S. intelligence agencies have evidence Putin was closely involved, but sources say the intelligence underlying that conclusion is extremely sensitive.

The CIA long ago turned over all the relevant intelligence it had on the Russian operation to FBI investigators, officials said. The NSA, DHS and the ODNI have also passed along to Mueller analysis and forensic information connected to the hacks, including telltale "signatures," malware and methods.

Another question is whether Mueller will charge Russian intelligence officers alleged to have supervised the operation. Often, the people who do the hacking for the Russian government are private freelancers. A former FBI official briefed on the matter said it was likely Russian government officials would be charged — but that Mueller would have to consult widely in the government about that decision.

"The Kremlin has used hackers to steal personal communications that Russian operatives then parceled out in targeted leaks, and created fake social media personas and news items on all sides of controversial issues in the hope of stirring discord in the West," Admiral Mike Rogers, the director of the NSA and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, told Congress this week.

Another major unanswered question is whether Mueller's grand jury will charge any Americans as witting participants in the hacking and leaking scheme — including anyone associated with Trump's presidential campaign. Americans referenced in Mueller's previous indictment of Russians were described as "unwitting."

One source suggested that a new indictment could include unnamed American co-conspirators as part of a strategy to pressure those involved to cooperate. The previous Mueller indictment involving the Russian social media operation cited a co-conspirator that it did not name.

Much like the social media activity laid out in Mueller's recent indictment, the Russian hacking operation began long before the 2016 election.

In 2015, Russian hackers stepped up a campaign to use "spear phishing" techniques to steal emails and other data from Capitol Hill staffers, political operatives and foreign policy experts, U.S. officials and outside experts tell NBC News. Such techniques involve sending what appears to be a friendly email that is actually loaded with malware that gives the sender access to the recipient's computer, and potentially the organization's network.

In March 2016, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta got an email instructing him to change his password. A staffer told him it was legitimate. The staffer was wrong. The Russians soon were inside his machine.

A few days later, a DNC employee acted on a similar email.

The GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, began vacuuming up emails from Podesta and from DNC accounts, according to CrowdStrike, the firm hired to analyze the breach. Another Russian intelligence agency, the SVR, also at some point breached DNC networks, CrowdStrike found.

A month later, in April, a junior Trump campaign adviser named George Papadopoulos met a mysterious European professor for breakfast at a London hotel.

According to court documents, the professor conveyed to Papadopoulos he had learned from Russian government officials in Moscow that the Russians had obtained "'dirt' on then-candidate Clinton," including "thousands of emails."

Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents and is now cooperating with Mueller.

The bulk of the stolen Democratic emails ultimately were made public through WikiLeaks, the self-described transparency organization that CIA Director Mike Pompeo has branded as a “hostile non-state intelligence service” that “collaborated” with Russia. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange disputes that his organization got the emails from the Russians. Another big question is whether Mueller will seek to charge anyone associated with WikiLeaks, who may claim in defense that they were acting as journalists.

On Wednesday, NBC News reported that Mueller's team is asking witnesses pointed questions about whether Trump was aware that Democratic emails had been stolen before that was publicly known, and whether he was involved in their strategic release, according to multiple people familiar with the probe.

President Trump has repeatedly denied collusion and has called the Mueller investigation a "witch hunt."

A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 22:51 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

India en China zijn enorm protectionistisch op vele vlakken. Protectionisme in opkomende economieën kan ook best een verstandige strategie zijn om industrieën tot bloei te laten komen zodat ze uiteindelijk zelfstandig de concurrentie met de industrieën uit ontwikkelde landen aan te kunnen.
In ontwikkelde landen is het echter maar zeer de vraag of het effectief is, tenzij je een cruciale industrie in stand wil houden.

[..]

Meestal krijg je vergelding waar uiteindelijk niemand wat aan heeft.

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 23:15 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Je hebt wel Chinese overproductie van staal, maar de staalprijzen zijn ook weer niet dramatisch. Dit is ook voor een deel politiek theater, dit soort "America First" in handelsbeleid was een van de pilaren van Trump's campagne die breed aansloeg in cruciale rust belt staten, maar de laatste tijd hebben we er weinig van gehoord.

quote:

A federal judge has permanently barred Indiana from trying to prevent Syrian refugees from resettling in the state under an order Vice President Mike Pence championed as governor.

U.S. District Judge Tonya Walton Pratt approved a judgment Tuesday permanently enjoining Indiana from withholding authorized payments to Indianapolis-based Exodus Refugee Immigration, which resettles refugees in the state.

Pence cited terrorism fears in issuing a November 2015 order barring state agencies from making payments to help relocate Syrians to Indiana.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sued Indiana, arguing Pence’s order illegally targeted Syrians based on their nationality and violated the U.S. Constitution and federal law.

Pratt temporarily blocked Pence’s order in February 2016, saying it “clearly discriminates” against Syrian refugees.

A federal appeals court sided with Pratt in October 2016.

quote:

A significant recent revelation in the Russia investigation has been largely overlooked in the rush of several breaking news stories over the past few days. A nugget of information is contained in the memo written by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee (the so-called Schiff Memo), which was released on Saturday morning.

Prior to the memo, we knew that a Russian agent told Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos of “Moscow possessing ‘dirt’” on Hillary Clinton “in the form of ‘thousands of emails,’” according to Papadopoulos’s plea statement. The memo went a legally significant step further. As Rep. Adam Schiff recently told Chris Hayes, “our memo discloses for the first time that the Russians previewed to Papadopoulos that they could help with disseminating these stolen emails.” Rep. Schiff added, “When Donald Trump openly called on the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, they’d be richly rewarded if they released these to the press, his campaign had already been put on notice that the Russians were prepared to do just that and disseminate these stolen emails.” (The full transcript and video clip is below.)

This new revelation is legally important and, if true, could have exposed Papadopoulos and potentially other campaign officials to significant criminal liability. I spoke with several leading experts in campaign finance law and former federal prosecutors to gather their views.

Rep. Schiff’s statement adds clarity to two stray statements in the memo itself. The memo states, “Russian agents previewed their hack and dissemination of stolen emails.” The memo also refers to this part of the record in stating, “We would later learn in Papadopoulos’s plea that that[sic] the information the Russians could assist by anonymously releasing were thousands of Hillary Clinton emails.”

A legally important question is what the Trump campaign did after the Russians previewed that they could help disseminate the stolen emails. If Trump campaign officials consulted with the Russians on their plans to disseminate the emails, it could involve direct violations of campaign finance laws (see the statement below from leading election law expert Paul Seamus Ryan). If Trump campaign officials gave tacit assent or approval or support, it could directly implicate them in the “conspiracy to defraud the United States” by evading the Federal Election Commission—the very conspiracy for which Mueller has already indicted thirteen Russian nationals (see the statement below by former White House official and also top election law expert Bob Bauer). If Papadopoulos intentionally encouraged the Russians and if he was instructed to do so by other campaign officials, they could be liable as accomplices (see statements below from law professors and former federal prosecutors Barbara McQuade and Alex Whiting). The Trump campaign as an organization could also be criminally liable (see statement below from McQuade). Finally, if members of the Trump campaign tried to conceal the facts of a crime (potentially including either the original DNC hack or the dissemination of the stolen emails) they could be guilty of “misprision of a felony” (see statements below by former federal prosecutors including Renato Mariotti).

[..]

Schiff on Russians Previewing their Email Dissemination

quote:

A prominent Kremlin-linked Russian politician has methodically cultivated ties with leaders of the National Rifle Association, and documented efforts in real time over six years to leverage those connections and gain access deeper into American politics, NPR has learned.

Russian politician Alexander Torshin claimed his ties to the National Rifle Association provided him access to Donald Trump — and the opportunity to serve as a foreign election observer in the United States during the 2012 election.

Torshin is a prolific Twitter user, logging nearly 150,000 tweets, mostly in Russian, since his account was created in 2011. Previously obscured by language and by sheer volume of tweets, Torshin has written numerous times about his connections with the NRA, of which he's a known paid lifetime member. NPR has translated a selection of those posts that document Torshin's relationship to the group.

These revelations come amid news that the FBI is investigating whether Torshin, the deputy governor of the Bank of Russia, illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to assist the Trump campaign in 2016, McClatchy reported in January.

In a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the Senate intelligence committee, the NRA denied any wrongdoing and suggested the FBI is investigating Torshin, not the NRA. Neither the NRA nor Torshin responded to inquiries from NPR.

[..]

twitter:

oneunderscore__ twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 03:02:58 Exclusive: The Internet Research Agency, or the Kremlin Troll Farm, suffered a massive leak, The Daily Beast has confirmed. Contents of its server were auctioned on a Russian auction site.We have some of the documents.https://t.co/JKkf59AIoa reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 21:30 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

kaylatausche twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 19:59:14 I'm told Cohn argued against tariffs in today's meeting. Argument was warned about higher prices, not a trade war. Trump's reaction, per a person in the room: That's "not the real world," and that result would be a "small price to pay" reageer retweet

twitter:

kaylatausche twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 20:17:32 ALSO: Trump told executives today the decision's been made, but the paperwork isn't done. Person in the room said Trump then turned to McGahn and said, "We're going to get those papers done, Don?" reageer retweet

Bam boem, Donald getting shit done.

quote:

First lady Melania Trump obtained a green card allowing her stay in the U.S. permanently through an elite visa program established for immigrants with “extraordinary abilities,” The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The so-called Einstein visa is aimed at people born abroad who have earned “sustained acclaim,” including renowned researchers or business leaders, award-winning performing artists and Olympic athletes. Applicants are instructed to submit evidence of a history of accomplishment or of a “one-time” achievement, such as a “Pulitzer, Oscar [or] Olympic Medal,” according to the requirements for the visa.

“You must be able to demonstrate extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics through sustained national or international acclaim,” the requirements state. Applicants can also “demonstrate international recognition for ... outstanding achievements in a particular academic field.” Applicants can submit “authorship of scholarly articles.”

According to Melania Trump’s bio during the presidential campaign, she graduated from the “University of Slovenia” with a degree in design and architecture. But she actually dropped out of college her freshman year, according to her biographers. And there is no University of Slovenia. The first lady’s current White House bio now says she “paused” her studies at the University of Ljubljana.

SPOILER

The first lady, who was Melania Knauss at the time, obtained an EB-1 visa from her native Slovenia in 2001 along with only four other Slovenes that year. Just .34 percent of all those who obtained green cards in the U.S. that year qualified for the EB-1 visa. She married Trump in 2005 and became a citizen in 2006.

Knauss was a working model when she met Donald Trump in 1998. One of her most notable jobs by 2001 was a photo in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue (Vanity Fair quipped that kissing an inflatable whale might have done the trick for her visa). She obtained HB-1 visas for skilled immigrants until she snagged the EB-1 visa about two years after first being photographed with Trump. She was later photographed nude in Trump’s private jet for a 2000 issue of British GQ.

Her special visa paved the way for her to sponsor her parents’ move to the U.S., a process that Donald Trump now opposes as “chain migration.” The first lady’s parents have obtained permanent resident status in the U.S. and are about to become citizens, sources told The Washington Post.

Michael Wildes, an attorney for Melania Trump, told the Post that the first lady was “more than amply qualified and solidly eligible” for the EB-1 program. He told The Jewish Standard in 2016 when discussing the visa: “There is no doubt that she is highly accomplished.”

twitter:

joncoopertweets twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 17:49:32 Topless fashion model exhibits "extraordinary ability" to manipulate the U.S. visa program...how do you say "swamp" in Slovenian? reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 04:46 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

twitter:

oneunderscore__ twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 03:02:58 Exclusive: The Internet Research Agency, or the Kremlin Troll Farm, suffered a massive leak, The Daily Beast has confirmed. Contents of its server were auctioned on a Russian auction site.We have some of the documents.https://t.co/JKkf59AIoa reageer retweet

quote:

[...]

Content from IRA-backed websites like BlackMattersUs.com received hundreds—and sometimes thousands—upvotes on subreddits like r/The_Donald and r/HillaryForPrison in the run-up to the 2016 election. Trolls purporting to represent the troll farm promised an Ask Me Anything session in October, but the Q-and-A never occurred.

When The Daily Beast reached out to Reddit for comment, a public relations representative requested screenshots and details of the leak, which The Daily Beast provided. The spokesperson told The Daily Beast the company would be in touch if it had any further comment.

Reddit then ignored repeated further requests for comment.

[...]

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 10:39 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Slaap je ooit wel?

Anyway, gerelateerd artikel: Russians Used Reddit and Tumblr to Troll the 2016 Election

Het leek me op zich wel vrij duidelijk dat er (Russische) trolls actief waren op Reddit, maar dat is dan nu ook bevestigd I guess, hoewel in dit artikel slechts gesproken wordt over het linken naar content van Russische trolls, niet dat ze zelf dingen gepost hebben... ?! (In het meer algemene artikel wordt wel meer expliciet gezegd dat ze actief waren op reddit)

[..]

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 23:24 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Dat het ondoordacht theater van Trump is lijkt me evident. Het ging meer om de vraag wat de effecten zouden zijn.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 11:15 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Van de heffingen op staal?

[ afbeelding ]

De noeste hardwerkende belastingbetalende Henk van de Hoogovens is het bokkie.

twitter:

tonyschwartz twitterde op donderdag 01-03-2018 om 20:31:20 Hope Hicks is an enabler with spectacularly bad taste in men who ended up in a hell of her own making. She's lived too much too soon. I'm sure there is a moral in this story, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what it is. reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 11:15 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Van de heffingen op staal?

[ afbeelding ]

De noeste hardwerkende belastingbetalende Henk van de Hoogovens is het bokkie.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 11:15 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Van de heffingen op staal?

[ afbeelding ]

De noeste hardwerkende belastingbetalende Henk van de Hoogovens is het bokkie.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 11:44 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Je snapt dat "Henk van de Hoogovens" een niet bestaand persoon is?

quote:

U.S. President Donald Trump has received two nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize that the Norwegian Nobel Committee says are forged.

It’s the second year in a row that someone has nominated Trump for the prestigious prize after assuming the identity of a qualified nominator, said Olav Njolstad, secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

The matter has been referred to the Oslo police, The Associated Press reported, quoting the NTB Norwegian wire service. Norwegian authorities have contacted the FBI for assistance and are planning to meet next week, said Rune Skjold, head of the economic crimes unit of the Oslo police force, reported the German wire service DPA. Skjold said forgers can face several years in prison.

SPOILER

Njolstad told The Washington Post that the same person is likely responsible for both fake nominations, which the committee discovered after reaching out to the individual whose name appeared on the letter recommending Trump. Njolstad did not identify that person.

Only certain people are allowed to nominate candidates for the peace prize, and the list of their identities is secret. They include former prize winners, heads of state and certain academics.

Unqualified people are often recommended for the peace prize, but that “as far as I know, this is the first example of someone nominating someone by stealing another person’s identity.”

According to several press reports, an unidentified American nominated Trump for the 2017 prize, saying the U.S. president should be honored for his “ideology of peace through force.” The same argument appeared in the nomination for this year’s prize, Deutsche Welle reported.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 11:45 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Is dat nog actueel?

quote:

Georgia lawmakers approved a bill on Thursday that stripped out a tax break proposal highly coveted by Delta Air Lines — the most stinging punishment that America’s pro-gun forces have leveled so far on one of the many corporations recalibrating their positions on firearms after the Florida high school massacre.

The $50 million sales tax exemption on jet fuel that was sought by Delta, one of Georgia’s biggest employers, had been included in a broader tax-relief bill. But this week, a number of Georgia Republicans, including Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, sought to remove the perk as retribution for Delta’s decision to end a promotional discount for members of the National Rifle Association.

The legislation now goes to the desk of the Republican governor, Nathan Deal, who has pledged to sign it into law. But Mr. Deal is a supporter of the jet-fuel tax break, and he said he would sign the bill only because it also included a significant reduction in personal and corporate tax rates.

SPOILER

Delta, in announcing the policy change, said it was trying to remain “neutral” in a national gun debate that has been rekindled by a gunman’s attack at a school in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 people dead. A number of other major American companies, including the car rental company Hertz and MetLife insurance, have also ended relationships with the N.R.A. since the shooting on Feb. 14.

On Thursday, the Georgia Senate overwhelmingly approved a version of the bill without the jet-fuel tax break. The House, which had already approved a version of the bill, also approved the change. Both houses are controlled by Republicans.

In a sign of the gulf that has opened between gun-rights purists and Republicans with a more pro-business bent, Mr. Deal this week appeared to chastise fellow Republicans who sought to punish Delta, and thus potentially harm Georgia’s business-friendly reputation.

“Ours is a welcoming state — the epitome of ‘Southern Hospitality,’” said Mr. Deal, who will leave office because of term limits early next year. “We were not elected to give the late-night talk show hosts fodder for their monologues or to act with the type of immaturity that has caused so many in our society to have a cynical view of politics.”

In addition to being one of Georgia’s biggest employers, Delta is the economic engine of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, the busiest airport in the world and a bragging point in the city’s claim to national and even international stature.

The divisions over gun control are stark in Georgia, where Mr. Cagle is among a handful of Republicans who are seeking to be the next governor. They are particularly eager to make an impression among the hard-right conservatives who will have a big voice in the Republican primary in May.

Mr. Cagle, the presumptive front-runner in the governor’s race, presides over the State Senate, and his threat on Monday to kill the tax break was interpreted here as a way to protect his right flank from his Republican rivals.

“I think that obviously Delta is free to make any decision that they want to,” Mr. Cagle said during an appearance on “Fox and Friends” this week. He added that Delta “chose to single out the N.R.A. and their membership, law-abiding gun owners, and I don’t think that’s right.” Delta announced on Saturday that it was ending a discount for N.R.A. members traveling to the association’s annual convention.

Other Republican candidates for governor were also eager to weigh in in favor of rescinding the tax break. Secretary of State Brian Kemp said lawmakers should reject the perk to airlines and instead focus on creating a sales tax holiday for buyers of guns, ammunition, holsters and safes where guns can be stored.

On the floor of the Senate on Thursday, Senator Michael Williams, another Republican candidate for governor, praised his fellow lawmakers for stripping the tax exemption, saying they “stood strong” in the face of pressure from liberals, the media and big business.

Mr. Deal has said he was “committed to finding a pathway forward for the elimination of sales tax on jet fuel, which is nonnegotiable.” But the political reality seems to leave him with few options.

Democrats have argued that the attack on Delta, which did not comment Thursday, could harm the ability to attract new businesses, chief among them Amazon. The online retailer named metropolitan Atlanta as one possible location for its new headquarters.

“Unfortunately, we’re looking at political gamesmanship, and trying to send ultraconservative messages for the Republican primary,” said Senator Steve Henson, the minority leader. “I think it does not enhance our chances to get Amazon.”

quote:

Op donderdag 1 maart 2018 22:40 schreef speknek het volgende:
McMaster McExit

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:09 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Je mag niet eens je gun meenemen in de handbagage.

Daar zou de NRA eens wat tegen moeten doen.

quote:

United States: 1. Pass an instant background check that includes criminal convictions, domestic violence and immigration status. 2. Buy a gun.

Japan: 1. Join a hunting or shooting club. 2. Take a firearm class and pass a written exam, which is held up to three times a year. 3. Get a doctor’s note saying you are mentally fit and do not have a history of drug abuse. 4. Apply for a permit to take firing training, which may take up to a month. 5. Describe in a police interview why you need a gun. 6. Pass a review of your criminal history, gun possession record, employment, involvement with organized crime groups, personal debt and relationships with friends, family and neighbors. 7. Apply for a gunpowder permit. 8. Take a one-day training class and pass a firing test. 9. Obtain a certificate from a gun dealer describing the gun you want. 10. Buy a gun safe and an ammunition locker that meet safety regulations. 11. Allow the police to inspect your gun storage. 12. Pass an additional background review. 13. Buy a gun.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:14 schreef Sloggi het volgende:

[..]

Als iedereen wapens zou mogen dragen in het vliegtuig waren die kapingen op 9/11 nooit zo uit de hand gelopen.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:20 schreef thesiren.nl het volgende:
Als de tarieven op staal stijgen en op auto's niet, dan weten jullie wat er gaat gebeuren, de fabrieken voor auto's gaan hun productie buiten Amerika opschroeven. Dit gaat Detroit of de rust-belt niks opleveren.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 11:50:34 When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy! reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:37 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 11:50:34 When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy! reageer retweet

Dusseh tsja ... "trade wars are good and easy to win"....

En ook weer dat rare mantra dat een handelstekort ten nadele zou zijn van de VS.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:37 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 11:50:34 When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy! reageer retweet

Dusseh tsja ... "trade wars are good and easy to win"....

En ook weer dat rare mantra dat een handelstekort ten nadele zou zijn van de VS.

quote:

Alec Baldwin, whose dying mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation of me on SNL, now says playing me was agony. Alec, it was agony for those who were forced to watch. Bring back Darrell Hammond, funnier and a far greater talent!

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:51 schreef saparmurat_niyazov het volgende:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/969529668234829825

[..]

Het is toch ook werkelijk bizar dat de president van een van de machtigste landen ter wereld zich over dit soort dingen druk maakt.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:48 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]
Hij begrijpt een hele hoop ook gewoon niet. Zo heeft Merkel een keer of 8 aan hem moeten uitleggen dat een bilaterale deal tussen de VS en Duitsland niet mogelijk is, voordat hij het eindelijk begreep

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:51 schreef saparmurat_niyazov het volgende:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/969529668234829825

[..]

Het is toch ook werkelijk bizar dat de president van een van de machtigste landen ter wereld zich over dit soort dingen druk maakt.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:52 schreef Wombcat het volgende:

[..]

Als ik het me goed herinner, begreep hij het toen ook niet, maar hield hij er over op, omdat Merkel uiteindelijk maar zei "ik zal er eens naar laten kijken." (oid)

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:50 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

[..]

We importeren te veel, dus hebben we een handelstekort, dus we stoppen met handelen en daarna wordt alles goedkoper.

Dat niemand deze tactiek ooit bedacht heeft.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:50 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

[..]

We importeren te veel, dus hebben we een handelstekort, dus we stoppen met handelen en daarna wordt alles goedkoper.

Dat niemand deze tactiek ooit bedacht heeft.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:52 schreef Wombcat het volgende:

[..]

Als ik het me goed herinner, begreep hij het toen ook niet, maar hield hij er over op, omdat Merkel uiteindelijk maar zei "ik zal er eens naar laten kijken." (oid)

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 13:11 schreef Montov het volgende:

[..]

En is het zo makkelijk! Gewoon meer betalen voor de producten die je importeert omdat je die nodig hebt. Misschien wordt er minder geimporteerd en daarmee wordt de handelsbalans 'beter'. Profit?

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 13:27 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

[..]

Zoveel vertrouwen heb ik niet aan iemand die 2! CASINO'S! bankroet heeft laten gaan.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 13:48 schreef Nielsch het volgende:
Volgens de NRA hebben ze even gepraat met Donald en komt hij nu terug op zijn voornemens om strengere wapenwetten in te voeren. Blijkbaar is Donald ook bang voor de NRA.

https://www.theguardian.c(...)not-want-gun-control

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 13:48 schreef Nielsch het volgende:
Volgens de NRA hebben ze even gepraat met Donald en komt hij nu terug op zijn voornemens om strengere wapenwetten in te voeren. Blijkbaar is Donald ook bang voor de NRA.

https://www.theguardian.c(...)not-want-gun-control

quote:

“You have to remind them, Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and its residents are U.S. citizens,” Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told USA Today after Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that it would end hurricane relief aid for the island.

Not long after FEMA’s late January announcement (one it later retracted), lawmakers from both sides of the aisle took the agency to task for its latest disregard for the hurricane victims. At the time, more than 1 million Puerto Ricans didn’t have access to electricity. Today, there are municipalities where 70 percent of people are still without power.

Activists and politicians noted that FEMA’s retreat was especially gross because it was a federal agency attempting to abandon the American citizens that it was responsible for. Since Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico last September, many influential people have also used their platforms to remind President Donald Trump and other lawmakers that the current humanitarian crisis on the island is particularly dire because the people suffering are in fact Americans.

It was as if abandoning our fellow citizens is apparently something we suddenly don’t do in this country.

SPOILER

The consistent emphasis on Puerto Ricans’ U.S. citizenship does have its purpose. Less than half of mainland Americans realize that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. This might be one of the reasons why there isn’t a collective national outcry strong enough to propel Trump and his administration to act. FEMA’s attempt to abandon the island and Trump’s failure to address the crisis during his State of the Union address suggest that these reminders have been largely ignored stateside.

It’s time we do away with our dangerous assumptions of what Trump doesn’t know and accept that the government’s current negligence in Puerto Rico is not the result of inexperienced, uninformed leadership. It is rather a deliberate political act of violence from a racist, imperialist government that is fueled by capitalist greed and white supremacy.

The lack of an uproar in the states about this violent act (or inaction) can also be attributed to the lack of kinship the majority of mainland Americans feel towards Puerto Ricans, which is no accident.

The United States has spent well over 120 years otherizing and dehumanizing Puerto Ricans to ensure this division exists since it invaded the island in 1898. The U.S. government has purposefully positioned Puerto Rico within the American imagination to always be seen as a foreign land inhabited and run by an inferior race of people, thus freeing itself from all legal and moral obligations to the island.

This rift has also allowed the U.S. to commit over a century’s worth of state violence in Puerto Rico without much historical outrage or pushback from stateside citizens.

The calls for the United States to care for the citizens on the island are therefore inherently ineffective, because they ask an imperialist government to treat folks separated by race, ethnicity, class, Latinidad and a “very big ocean” as no different than it would treat the average white American ― when at no point in U.S. history has this country treated Puerto Ricans as fully human, let alone as fully American.

The citizenship that white Americans enjoy, one with a specific set of privileges and freedoms, has never been fully extended to people of color on the mainland. How could it ever reach the shores of Borinquen?

The citizenship that Puerto Ricans have been forced to accept has always been second class, at best. American citizenship has historically been used as a tool of colonial exploitation on the island, not liberation.

The U.S. government imposed citizenship upon Puerto Rico as a shiny new gift to itself; underneath the wrapping was unfettered access to millions of bodies that the U.S. would use to fuel its military industrial complex for generations to come.

One month after citizenship was passed on the island in March 1917, the U.S. entered World War I. Approximately 20,000 Puerto Ricans served for a country they couldn’t even vote in.

And, maybe more importantly, the gift of citizenship also included a permanent caste of working-class citizens for U.S. corporations to exploit for cheap labor as a means of upholding the capitalist social structure.

If we are to use simple reminders in a conversation as complex as this, let’s remind ourselves that the government’s abhorrent response to Hurricane Maria isn’t its first deliberate act of violence against the Americans in Puerto Rico.

Because when the U.S. bombed Jayuya and Utuado, it bombed U.S. citizens.

When the U.S. Navy used Vieques as a testing site for chemical weapons, it poisoned U.S. citizens.

When the U.S spearheaded and funded the sterilization of the island’s women, it sterilized U.S. citizens.

When the U.S. jailed, tortured and harassed Pedro Albizu Campos and many other Puerto Rican freedom fighters for years, it murdered U.S. citizens.

And when we ignore these and the countless other examples of state violence the U.S. has inflicted upon the small island, we slowly begin to absolve the government of the gross human rights violations it has and continues to commit against its own citizens in Puerto Rico.

It’s now time for the conversation about the crisis to include much more than the island’s relationship to U.S. citizenship.

Let’s remind ourselves that the United States invaded Puerto Rico; robbed its land; looted its natural resources; closed its schools; lowered its minimum wage; raised its retirement age; taxed its economy to death; destroyed any chance at self-determination; and tossed countless of its brilliant, beautiful and talented people into a pipeline that feeds directly into the U.S.’s military, private prisons, broken schools and underpaid labor force.

When we consider everything the United States has stolen from Puerto Rico, it owes the island a hell of a lot more than four months’ worth of bottled water and expired military meals. The time for repayment is long past due.

We must make room for a wider and more nuanced conversation that holds the United States responsible for completely rebuilding Puerto Rico ― not only because Puerto Ricans are American citizens, but also because the U.S. owes a great moral and historical debt to the island and its people for the past 120 years of colonialism.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 14:18 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Meanwhile on Puerto Rico... nou ja, je voelt 'm eigenlijk al aankomen, het is er nog steeds een zootje.

Puerto Ricans Are Americans, But That Doesn’t Matter To The U.S. (HuffPo Longread)

[ afbeelding ]

[..]

SPOILER

The consistent emphasis on Puerto Ricans’ U.S. citizenship does have its purpose. Less than half of mainland Americans realize that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. This might be one of the reasons why there isn’t a collective national outcry strong enough to propel Trump and his administration to act. FEMA’s attempt to abandon the island and Trump’s failure to address the crisis during his State of the Union address suggest that these reminders have been largely ignored stateside.

It’s time we do away with our dangerous assumptions of what Trump doesn’t know and accept that the government’s current negligence in Puerto Rico is not the result of inexperienced, uninformed leadership. It is rather a deliberate political act of violence from a racist, imperialist government that is fueled by capitalist greed and white supremacy.

The lack of an uproar in the states about this violent act (or inaction) can also be attributed to the lack of kinship the majority of mainland Americans feel towards Puerto Ricans, which is no accident.

The United States has spent well over 120 years otherizing and dehumanizing Puerto Ricans to ensure this division exists since it invaded the island in 1898. The U.S. government has purposefully positioned Puerto Rico within the American imagination to always be seen as a foreign land inhabited and run by an inferior race of people, thus freeing itself from all legal and moral obligations to the island.

This rift has also allowed the U.S. to commit over a century’s worth of state violence in Puerto Rico without much historical outrage or pushback from stateside citizens.

The calls for the United States to care for the citizens on the island are therefore inherently ineffective, because they ask an imperialist government to treat folks separated by race, ethnicity, class, Latinidad and a “very big ocean” as no different than it would treat the average white American ― when at no point in U.S. history has this country treated Puerto Ricans as fully human, let alone as fully American.

The citizenship that white Americans enjoy, one with a specific set of privileges and freedoms, has never been fully extended to people of color on the mainland. How could it ever reach the shores of Borinquen?

The citizenship that Puerto Ricans have been forced to accept has always been second class, at best. American citizenship has historically been used as a tool of colonial exploitation on the island, not liberation.

The U.S. government imposed citizenship upon Puerto Rico as a shiny new gift to itself; underneath the wrapping was unfettered access to millions of bodies that the U.S. would use to fuel its military industrial complex for generations to come.

One month after citizenship was passed on the island in March 1917, the U.S. entered World War I. Approximately 20,000 Puerto Ricans served for a country they couldn’t even vote in.

And, maybe more importantly, the gift of citizenship also included a permanent caste of working-class citizens for U.S. corporations to exploit for cheap labor as a means of upholding the capitalist social structure.

If we are to use simple reminders in a conversation as complex as this, let’s remind ourselves that the government’s abhorrent response to Hurricane Maria isn’t its first deliberate act of violence against the Americans in Puerto Rico.

Because when the U.S. bombed Jayuya and Utuado, it bombed U.S. citizens.

When the U.S. Navy used Vieques as a testing site for chemical weapons, it poisoned U.S. citizens.

When the U.S spearheaded and funded the sterilization of the island’s women, it sterilized U.S. citizens.

When the U.S. jailed, tortured and harassed Pedro Albizu Campos and many other Puerto Rican freedom fighters for years, it murdered U.S. citizens.

And when we ignore these and the countless other examples of state violence the U.S. has inflicted upon the small island, we slowly begin to absolve the government of the gross human rights violations it has and continues to commit against its own citizens in Puerto Rico.

It’s now time for the conversation about the crisis to include much more than the island’s relationship to U.S. citizenship.

Let’s remind ourselves that the United States invaded Puerto Rico; robbed its land; looted its natural resources; closed its schools; lowered its minimum wage; raised its retirement age; taxed its economy to death; destroyed any chance at self-determination; and tossed countless of its brilliant, beautiful and talented people into a pipeline that feeds directly into the U.S.’s military, private prisons, broken schools and underpaid labor force.

When we consider everything the United States has stolen from Puerto Rico, it owes the island a hell of a lot more than four months’ worth of bottled water and expired military meals. The time for repayment is long past due.

We must make room for a wider and more nuanced conversation that holds the United States responsible for completely rebuilding Puerto Rico ― not only because Puerto Ricans are American citizens, but also because the U.S. owes a great moral and historical debt to the island and its people for the past 120 years of colonialism.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 13:48 schreef Nielsch het volgende:
Volgens de NRA hebben ze even gepraat met Donald en komt hij nu terug op zijn voornemens om strengere wapenwetten in te voeren. Blijkbaar is Donald ook bang voor de NRA.

https://www.theguardian.c(...)not-want-gun-control

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 14:57:22 When a country Taxes our products coming in at, say, 50%, and we Tax the same product coming into our country at ZERO, not fair or smart. We will soon be starting RECIPROCAL TAXES so that we will charge the same thing as they charge us. $800 Billion Trade Deficit-have no choice! reageer retweet

quote:

We must protect our country and our workers. Our steel industry is in bad shape. IF YOU DON’T HAVE STEEL, YOU DON’T HAVE A COUNTRY!

twitter:

SethAbramson twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 06:04:48 If any look screams "I have a secret diary" more than this one, I've never seen it. https://t.co/yj6AEMTwYi reageer retweet

quote:

One White House insider also told the website that Hicks reportedly kept a "detailed diary" detailing her interactions and time in the White House, a resource that could be a major asset for any memoir she plans to write.

quote:

President Donald Trump's lawyers have urged him not to discuss details of the unfolding Russia investigation with anyone outside his legal team, warning of a conversational "bright line" that could put aides and associates in legal jeopardy, according to current and former Trump aides.

But Trump often ignores that legal advice in the presence of senior aides -- including his departing confidante and White House communications director, Hope Hicks.

"I think the president has put her in a very precarious position," a senior Trump administration official said in a recent interview.

Hicks is not alone. Current and former Trump aides describe a president who often fails to observe boundaries about the Russia probe and who calls staffers into his office and raises the subject without warning.

quote:

The Securities and Exchange Commission late last year dropped its inquiry into a financial company that a month earlier had given White House adviser Jared Kushner’s family real estate firm a $180 million loan.

While there’s no evidence that Kushner or any other Trump administration official had a role in the agency’s decision to drop the inquiry into Apollo Global Management, the timing has once again raised potential conflict-of-interest questions about Kushner’s family business and his role as an adviser to his father-in-law, President Donald Trump.

The SEC detail comes a day after The New York Times reported that Apollo’s loan to the Kushner Cos. followed several meetings at the White House with Kushner.

“I suppose the best case for Kushner is that this looks absolutely terrible,” said Rob Weissman, president of Public Citizen. “Without presuming that there is any kind of quid pro quo ... there are a lot of ways that the fact of Apollo’s engagement with Kushner and the Kushner businesses in a public and private context might cast a shadow over what the SEC is doing and influence consciously or unconsciously how the agency acted.”

SPOILER

Apollo said in its 2018 annual report that the SEC had halted its inquiry into how the firm reported the financial results of its private equity funds and other costs and personnel changes. Apollo had previously reported that the Obama administration SEC had subpoenaed it for information related to the issue.

The SEC, which often makes such inquiries of financial firms, didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment.

Apollo said the company founder who met with Jared Kushner did not discuss with him “a loan, investment, or any other business arrangement or regulatory matter involving Apollo.” It added that the Kushner loan to refinance a Chicago skyscraper went through the “standard approval process” and that the founder was not involved in the decision.

Kushner Cos. said in a statement that the implication that Kushner’s position in the White House had affected the company’s relationships with lenders is “without substantiation.”

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Jared Kushner attorney Abbe Lowell, had no comment on the dropped SEC inquiry or whether it was influenced by Kushner’s contacts with Apollo. He added that Kushner has “had no role in the Kushner Companies since joining the government and has taken no part of any business, loans or projects with or for the Companies after that.”

According to the Times report, Kushner also met with the CEO of Citigroup at the White House early last year. Property records show that Citigroup lent $325 million in March to Kushner Cos. and two partners for a collection of buildings in Brooklyn.

Both lenders had important business before the federal government last year, according to lobbying records and regulatory filings. Both Apollo and Citigroup were pushing for tax breaks in the recently passed overhaul, and Citigroup was lobbying for a rollback of some financial crisis regulation.

Combined, the two companies spent nearly $7 million on lobbying last year.

For its part, Citigroup said in a statement that it didn’t deal with Kushner Cos. at all in arranging the loan, and talked instead to one of the Kushner Cos. partners. It added that its CEO was not involved in the transaction and “never discussed it” with Jared Kushner.

Details on the loans, like the interest rates charged, are not publicly available, so it’s unclear whether the Kushner Cos. got any special breaks.

The Kushner family’s biggest holding, a skyscraper on Fifth Avenue, is 30 percent unoccupied and has a $1.2 billion mortgage due early next year. That has fueled speculation that the company needs money, and fast.

But the Kushner Cos. has repeatedly pushed back on depictions that it is anything but in solid financial shape and needs help.

The company said Thursday that linking the loans to Jared Kushner’s meetings at the White House has “nothing to do with reality.”

“Jared does not tell us who he meets with nor do we ask him,” said Kushner Cos. spokeswoman Christine Taylor. “We do not update Jared on what’s going on in our business nor does he ask.”

Regardless, ethics experts said the optics are bad and Kushner should not have been having meetings with Apollo and Citigroup officials while his family business was seeking loans from them.

“I’d never seen anybody come in with a business loan exposure, debt exposure like Trump and Kushner,” said Virginia Canter, a former ethics official in the Obama and Clinton White Houses who is now with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 15:28 schreef saparmurat_niyazov het volgende:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/969558431802806272

[..]

Landen zonder staal zijn geen landen!!!!1

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:51 schreef saparmurat_niyazov het volgende:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/969529668234829825

[..]

Het is toch ook werkelijk bizar dat de president van een van de machtigste landen ter wereld zich over dit soort dingen druk maakt.

twitter:

ABFalecbaldwin twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 13:38:58 Agony though it may be, I’d like to hang in there for the impeachment hearings, the resignation speech, the farewell helicopter ride to Mara-A-Lago. You know. The Good Stuff. That we’ve all been waiting for. reageer retweet

twitter:

ABFalecbaldwin twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 14:23:43 Looking forward to the Trump Presidential Library.A putting green.Recipes for chocolate cake.A live Twitter feed for visitors to post on.A little black book w the phone numbers of porn stars.You're in and out in five minutes.Just like... reageer retweet

twitter:

ABFalecbaldwin twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 14:36:11 And Mr President...please ask your wife to stop calling me for SNL tickets.(Hey, Melania...we've got Charles Barkley this Saturday!) reageer retweet

quote:

Billionaire investor and longtime Trump confidant Carl Icahn dumped $31.3 million of stock in a company heavily dependent on steel last week, just days before Trump announced plans to impose steep tariffs on steel imports.

In a little-noticed SEC filing submitted on February 22, 2018, Icahn disclosed that he systematically sold off nearly 1 million shares of Manitowoc Company Inc. Manitowoc is a “is a leading global manufacturer of cranes and lifting solutions” and, therefore, heavily dependent on steel to make its products.

The filing came just seven days before a White House event where Trump announced his intention of imposing a 25 percent tariff on steel imports.

Trump’s announcement rattled the markets, with steel-dependent stocks hardest hit. Manitowoc stock plunged, losing about 6 percent of its value. Reuters attributed the drop to the fact that Manitowoc is a “major consumer of steel.” As of 10:20 a.m. Friday, the stock had lost an additional 6 percent, trading at $26.21.

Icahn was required to make the disclosure because of the large volume of his sale. The filing reveals that he began systematically selling the stock on February 12, when he was able to sell the stock for $32 to $34.

twitter:

SethAbramson twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 17:39:33 It's not just Trump advisor Carl Icahn dumping steel stock like he knew Trump would be issuing a surprise announcement on steel--it's the man Manafort offered Trump updates to getting out of aluminum under a week before the surprise announcement on aluminum.https://t.co/nbxjeVlQyw reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 17:54 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Trump confidant dumped millions in steel-related stock last week

Carl Icahn has impeccable timing.

[..]

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 16:35 schreef BlackLining het volgende:

[..]

Zoals mensen met een geestelijke stoornis wel vaker doen verwoordt hij het wat zwart-wit, maar geen eigen staalindustrie hebben is toch vervelend voor landen. Vergis je niet in hoeveel zaken staal voorkomt.

Vergelijk het wat met olie. Geen eigen olievelden (ijzererts) hebben is nog niet zo'n ramp. Geen eigen raffinaderij (hoogoven) hebben is toch vrij matig. Kun je al die meuk los gaan importeren, en je hebt het keihard nodig voor je infrastructuur.


Dat geleuter met die handelsbarrière slaat nergens op verder. Hopelijk heeft hij er vooral zelf last van en blijft de beschaafde wereld rustig.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 17:46 schreef martijnde3de het volgende:
Laatste peiling van ppp:

Do you approve or disapprove of President
Donald Trump’s job performance?

44% Approve
50% Disapprove

Generally speaking if there was an election for
Congress today, would you vote for the
Democratic or Republican candidate from your
district?

49% Democratic candidate
41% Republican candidate

2020:

Biden 51%
Trump 42%

Booker 46%
Trump 42%

Trump 43%
Gillibrand 42%

Trump 43%
Harris 43%

Kennedy 46%
Trump 43%

Sanders 48%
Trump 44%

Trump 44%
Warren 44%

https://www.publicpolicyp(...)e_National_21418.pdf

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 19:23 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Evenals nu al speculeren hoeveel kans Democraten gaan maken bij de midterms.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 17:54 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Trump confidant dumped millions in steel-related stock last week

Carl Icahn has impeccable timing.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 19:23 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Evenals nu al speculeren hoeveel kans Democraten gaan maken bij de midterms.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 19:45 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Dat is niet helemaal waar, er zijn gewoon een hele hoop historische trends wat betreft midterms en er is geen reden om aan te nemen dat daar dit jaar geen sprake van is. De Democraten zijn gewoon licht favoriet.

quote:

"Perception is more important than reality. If someone perceives something to be true, it is more important than if it is in fact true. This doesn't mean you should be duplicitous or deceitful, but don't go out of your way to correct a false assumption if it plays to your advantage."

- Ivanka Trump, The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 19:45 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Dat is niet helemaal waar, er zijn gewoon een hele hoop historische trends wat betreft midterms en er is geen reden om aan te nemen dat daar dit jaar geen sprake van is. De Democraten zijn gewoon licht favoriet.

quote:

The real estate firm tied to the family of presidential son-in-law and top White House adviser Jared Kushner made a direct pitch to Qatar’s minister of finance in April 2017 in an attempt to secure investment in a critically distressed asset in the company’s portfolio, according to two sources. At the previously unreported meeting, Jared Kushner’s father Charles, who runs Kushner Companies, and Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi discussed financing for the Kushners’ signature 666 Fifth Avenue property in New York City.

The 30-minute meeting, according to two sources in the financial industry who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the potential transaction, included aides to both parties, and was held at a suite at the St. Regis Hotel in New York.

[..]

quote:

Federal investigators are scrutinizing whether any of Jared Kushner's business discussions with foreigners during the presidential transition later shaped White House policies in ways designed to either benefit or retaliate against those he spoke with, according to witnesses and other people familiar with the investigation.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has asked witnesses about Kushner's efforts to secure financing for his family's real estate properties, focusing specifically on his discussions during the transition with individuals from Qatar and Turkey, as well as Russia, China and the United Arab Emirates, according to witnesses who have been interviewed as part of the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign to sway the 2016 election.

As part of the scrutiny of Kushner's discussions with Turks, federal investigators have reached out to Turkish nationals for information on Kushner through the FBI's legal attache office in Ankara, according to two people familiar with the matter. Separately, Qatari government officials visiting the U.S. in late January and early February considered turning over to Mueller what they believe is evidence of efforts by their country's Persian Gulf neighbors in coordination with Kushner to hurt their country, four people familiar with the matter said. The Qatari officials decided against cooperating with Mueller for now out of fear it would further strain the country's relations with the White House, these people said.

[..]

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 19:58 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

"Historische trends wat betreft midterms"? Het duurt gewoon nog acht maanden waarin veel kan gebeuren. Volgens mij is de nauwkeurigheid van peilingen 8 maanden voor de aanvang van midterms niet heel groot als je kijkt naar historische resultaten.

quote:

[..]

According to two officials, Trump's decision to launch a potential trade war was born out of anger at other simmering issues and the result of a broken internal process that has failed to deliver him consensus views that represent the best advice of his team.

[..]

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 20:23 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Oooowww......Trump was gewoon pissed

Trump was angry and ‘unglued’ when he started a trade war, officials say

[..]

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 20:23 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Oooowww......Trump was gewoon pissed

Trump was angry and ‘unglued’ when he started a trade war, officials say

[..]

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 12:51 schreef saparmurat_niyazov het volgende:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/969529668234829825

[..]

Het is toch ook werkelijk bizar dat de president van een van de machtigste landen ter wereld zich over dit soort dingen druk maakt.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 20:04 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Man, man, man.....

Jared Kushner’s Real-Estate Firm Sought Money Directly From Qatar Government Weeks Before Blockade

[..]

Gelukkig hebben we Mueller nog

Mueller team asking if Kushner foreign business ties influenced Trump policy

[..]

quote:

E.U. Leader Threatens to Retaliate With Tariffs on Bourbon and Bluejeans (NYTimes)

BERLIN — The European Union will hit back at the heart of the United States, slapping tariffs on products like Harley-Davidsons, Kentucky bourbon and bluejeans, if President Trump goes ahead with a plan to place tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the president of the bloc’s executive arm vowed on Friday.

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, made the remarks to the German news media in reaction to the proposed tariffs. He said the plans to tax the American goods, produced in the home states of key Republican leaders, had not yet been finalized, but amounted to treating them “the same way” that European products would be handled if the metals tariffs go through.

“None of this is reasonable, but reason is a sentiment that is very unevenly distributed in this world,” Mr. Juncker declared. He said any measures taken by the bloc would conform with rules set by the World Trade Organization.

[...]

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 22:57 schreef Szura het volgende:
Ook Politico heeft dat nieuws:
https://www.politico.eu/a(...)om-bourbon-to-jeans/

Aanpakken die hersenloze snatsneus in het Witte Huis

quote:

The targets cited by Juncker are in line with earlier countermeasure lists, which focused on goods from politically sensitive Republican-run states.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 22:35 schreef Freak188 het volgende:

[..]

Eerst hoopte ik dat Mueller ten minste trump zou pakken. Nu lijkt het erop dat ie die hele criminele kliek te pakken gaat krijgen. Wat een ironie. De zucht naar aandacht gaat jailtime opleveren.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 23:31 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Het voordeel van zo'n Kushner ten opzichte van een Trump is dat eerstgenoemde moeiteloos juridisch kan worden aangepakt. Bij een verkozen politicus ligt dat toch lastiger.
Vervolgens kan Trump wel gratie verlenen mocht het tot een veroordeling komen, maar dan mag ik toch hopen dat het voor politici en kiezers voldoende reden is om van hem af te mogen.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 22:50 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
De EU dreigt terug te slaan:

[..]

Harley-Davidson komt uit Wisconsin --> Ryan
Bourbon uit Kentucky --> McConnell
Levis uit California --> Pelosi?

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 23:41 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Trump kan ook alleen gratie verlenen voor federale aanklachten. Er zijn mensen met theorieën die er op neerkomen dat Mueller wacht met het aanklagen van de inner circle van Trump voordat er voldoende bewijs is voor aanklachten op statelijk niveau (NY).

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 23:45 schreef Freak188 het volgende:

[..]

Cali —> Nunes?

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 23:49 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ja, daar zat ik aan te denken, maar ik denk niet dat hij een groot genoege speler is om beleid echt te beinvloeden? 't Is meer het type van een nuttige vechter oid... Pelosi heeft aanzienlijk meer invloed dan Nunes denk ik iig...

quote:

Sweden’s Electrolux (ELUXb.ST), Europe’s largest home appliance maker, said on Friday it would delay a planned $250 million investment in Tennessee, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs on imported aluminum and steel.

twitter:

KyleClark twitterde op zaterdag 03-03-2018 om 00:52:40 #9NEWS has confirmed @RepLebsock switched his voter registration from Democrat to Republican this afternoon before he was expelled from #coleg. This means Republicans may get to pick his replacement. A final middle finger to his party. (switch first reported by @BenteBirkeland) reageer retweet

quote:

Big news in voter reg in NV: I already told you Dems lost ground again in February. Burt it's even worse for Dems. Attrition (voters knocked off list because did not respond to post cards sent to them) in Clark County reduced number by.....16,000! Now lead is below 60K statewide.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 02:25 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

KyleClark twitterde op zaterdag 03-03-2018 om 00:52:40 #9NEWS has confirmed @RepLebsock switched his voter registration from Democrat to Republican this afternoon before he was expelled from #coleg. This means Republicans may get to pick his replacement. A final middle finger to his party. (switch first reported by @BenteBirkeland) reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 09:05 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Misschien kun je eens een analyse plaatsen

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 22-11-2017 om 11:25:22 It wasn’t the White House, it wasn’t the State Department, it wasn’t father LaVar’s so-called people on the ground in China that got his son out of a long term prison sentence - IT WAS ME. Too bad! LaVar is just a poor man’s version of Don King, but without the hair. Just think.. reageer retweet

quote:

ESPN conducted a series of interviews with multiple sources who were on the ground in China to recreate a moment-by-moment depiction of the events.

Among the new details that have emerged: what the players stole from the other two stores besides the sunglasses from Louis Vuitton; that the players were required to leave the police station multiple times to return the items they stole to all three stores; that one player hid a pair of stolen sunglasses in UCLA head coach Steve Alford's hotel room; how UCLA and Pac-12 officials bailed the players out of jail without committing an NCAA violation; how charges were dropped, the bail refunded and the players' passports returned two days before White House chief of staff John Kelly called the players to inform them that President Donald Trump was working on their release; how UCLA appeased Chinese authorities by keeping the players in China for 72 hours after the rest of the team had returned to Los Angeles; and why school officials thought it wise to thank Trump and Kelly while still unsure of the impact of their efforts.

Volledig verhaal:
http://www.espn.com/mens-(...)aa-basketball-season

quote:

Days before the election, Stormy Daniels threatened to cancel deal to keep alleged affair with Trump secret

The 2016 election was less than a month away, and Donald Trump’s attorney had blown the deadline for paying Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about her alleged affair with the future president.

In an Oct. 17 email, an attorney for Daniels — a porn star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — threatened to cancel the nondisclosure agreement by the end of the day.

That very morning, Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, had created a limited liability company, public records show, that ultimately would serve as a vehicle for Daniels’s payoff. But the money had not arrived. A second email to Cohen, a short time after the first, said Daniels was calling the deal off.

“Please be advised that my client deems her settlement agreement canceled and void,” Daniels’s lawyer, Keith Davidson, wrote in the email, which The Washington Post obtained.

Ten days later, the $130,000 payment arrived, according to another email reviewed by The Post.

(..)

Some campaign-finance experts see parallels to the case of former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.), who was indicted by federal authorities in 2011 on charges that he used money from wealthy donors to hide an extramarital affair. The jury acquitted him on one charge and deadlocked on five other counts.

(..)

After the Journal published its story, Cohen initially dismissed reports of the payment as a “false narrative.” He later issued a statement in which he said he “used my own personal funds to facilitate” a payment of $130,000 to Daniels. He said that neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction and that neither had reimbursed him for the payment.

Bron: WaPo

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 09:32 schreef Montov het volgende:

[..]

Een advocaat die van eigen geld iemand betaalt om te zwijgen over een relatie met zijn client net voor de verkiezing. Moerassig.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 02:25 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

KyleClark twitterde op zaterdag 03-03-2018 om 00:52:40 #9NEWS has confirmed @RepLebsock switched his voter registration from Democrat to Republican this afternoon before he was expelled from #coleg. This means Republicans may get to pick his replacement. A final middle finger to his party. (switch first reported by @BenteBirkeland) reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 10:24 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Hier een artikel erover: Colorado Rep. Steve Lebsock is expelled following harassment complaints from five women

Hij werd door 5 vrouwen beschuldigd van sexual harrassment. Een onderzoek gaf aan dat die beschuldigingen geloofwaardig waren. Hij heeft eerst zijn verontschuldigingen aangeboden en switchte daarna van standpunt om te ontkennen of om te zeggen dat hij het niet meer weet, omdat hij zoveel gezopen had dat hij geen geheugen meer had van de avond in kwestie.

Nu is hij met 52 tegen 9 uit het Huis gestemd. 36 democrats + 16 republikeinen stemden hier voor, 9 republikeinen tegen, 4 republikeinen waren niet aanwezig.

Wel een vreemde zaak als zijn vervanger een republikein gaat zijn, want het kan wel een fuck you naar de democrats zijn, maar hij zit er als vertegenwoordiger van zijn district en die hebben gestemd voor een democrat. Niet dat het verder voor de meerderheid in het Huis uitmaakt.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 10:49 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Misschien willen die Republikeinen liever geen precedent scheppen..

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 11:06 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ja, daar zeg je wat ... er zijn ook wat beschuldigingen geuit tegen enkele republikeinen in de senaat. Ik heb geen idee hoe geloofwaardig dat allemaal is echter.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 11:49 schreef Nintex het volgende:
Er is een fonds waarmee dat soort zaken discreet afgehandeld worden. Inmiddels zijn er al flinke bedragen uitgekeerd aan (anonieme) slachtoffers om zaken te schikken.

https://nypost.com/2017/12/22/senate-says-its-paid-out-1-5m-to-settle-harassment-claims/

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 11:52 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Wat heeft dat te maken met het huis van afgevaardigden van Colorado?

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 11:53 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Ik vergat de post waarop ik reageerde te quoten meneer de FOK! BOA.

quote:

Op vrijdag 2 maart 2018 20:13 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Het is gewoon een feit dat de partij die niet de president levert tijdens midterms beter scoort, dat de voorsprong van die partij tussen het moment 8 maanden voor de verkiezingen en eind november bijna altijd uitloopt in plaats van minder wordt, etcetera. Dat is jaar na jaar na jaar zo. Geen reden om aan te nemen dat dat nu niet zo is.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 12:16 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Oh ja? Kom maar met cijfers dan.

quote:

Canadians reacted with a mixture of anger, confusion and resignation this week to President Trump’s promise to hit U.S. imports of steel and aluminum with hefty tariffs, upending decades of economic cooperation and integration.

“We’re pretty consistently flabbergasted that Canada is at the top of the hit parade of trade villains” in Trump’s eyes, said Douglas Porter, chief economist at the Bank of Montreal.

Under the Trump policies announced Thursday, steel imported into the United States would be slapped with a 25 percent tariff and aluminum with a 10 percent tariff. The announcement sent shudders through world markets and prompted a global outcry, with European allies and others threatening retaliation.

Trump has often accused China of forcing U.S. steel and aluminum companies to fold by inundating the market with cheaper materials. But Canada is the largest exporter of steel and aluminum to the United States, supplying $7.2 billion of aluminum and $4.3 billion of steel to the United States last year.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the tariff proposal “absolutely unacceptable,” using the same phrase as Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, who also threatened retaliatory measures if Canada isn’t exempted from the trade actions.

SPOILER

Trudeau, speaking at an event in Barrie, Ontario, said he had raised the issue of tariffs in the past but didn’t indicate whether he had talked to Trump since the announcement.

“We will continue to engage with all levels of the American administration in the coming days so that they understand that this proposal is unacceptable,” he said.

It was unclear from Trump’s announcement what countries would be subject to the tariffs. More details on the policy were expected to be released next week.

“We’re hoping that reasonable voices are going to prevail” and that Canada will be exempted, said Keanin Loomis, president of the Chamber of Commerce in Hamilton, Ontario, the heart of the Canadian steel industry. “Canadian steel is fair trade. We adhere to tight labor regulations and tight environmental regulations.”

But Lawrence Herman, a Toronto trade lawyer, said that he doubts Trump is interested in exempting Canada from the tariffs. Trump remarked this week in a meeting with U.S. governors that Canada was “very smooth” in its trade relations.

“We lose a lot with Canada. People don’t know it,” Trump said. “They have you believe that it’s wonderful, and it is — for them. Not wonderful for us — it’s wonderful for them.”

Herman said he is convinced that if the tariffs remain, Canada will retaliate.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. Canada has to respond. I would target U.S. wine for starters,” he said. “Canadian consumers are not going to be prejudiced” because there are many alternative sources of wine in the world. Other U.S. products could follow, he predicted.

Jean Simard, president of the Aluminum Association of Canada, said that his industry has been integrated into the U.S. economy for more than 50 years and that the Pentagon considers Canadian aluminum production a strategic military supply.

“There’s no rationale,” Simard said. “It doesn’t make sense. It’s just protectionism.

“We’re by far the largest supplier to the U.S.,” he said, with annual output of 3.2 million metric tons of aluminum coming from 10 Canadian smelters and 90 percent of that output heading south of the border. Canada supplies about half of U.S. aluminum requirements, according to the Aluminum Association.

Simard said that nine of 15 U.S. aluminum smelters have closed in the past four years, but he blames their demise on a surge in Chinese production and the fact that they face high power costs and have never been modernized.

In 2000, Canada accounted for 10 percent of global aluminum output and now accounts for 5 percent. China’s share rose from 11 percent to 55 percent in the same period, according to the association.

Not accustomed to being cast as the villain, Canadians are now finding themselves being considered a rival by the U.S. president, pollster Nik Nanos said.

“I don’t think Canadians feel they are being singled out,” he said, noting Trump’s diatribes against Mexico, China and Germany. “For Canadians, it’s more resignation with the environment we live in.”

Blame Canada - South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (3/9) Movie CLIP (1999) HD

quote:

Embattled former Senate candidate Roy Moore is making a public plea for help to pay the legal fees he faces defending himself from a lawsuit brought by an Alabama woman who says he touched her sexually when she was 14 years old.

In a statement posted on his Senate campaign’s Facebook page, the Republican former judge made the ask in a grievance-filled note, saying that he faced a “vicious attack from lawyers in Washington D.C. and San Francisco who have hired one of the biggest firms in Birmingham Alabama to bring another legal action against me.”

“My resources have been depleted and I have struggled to make ends meet,” Moore wrote, saying that his legal fees could exceed $100,000. “I have had to establish a legal defense fund, anything you give will be appreciated.”

SPOILER

Leigh Corfman filed a defamation lawsuit against Moore in January, part of an emerging legal strategy of litigating sexual misconduct claims through civil lawsuits when the statute of limitations has expired for criminal charges.

In November, Corfman told The Washington Post that Moore took her to his house, undressed her and touched her sexually when he was a 32-year-old district attorney in 1979, and she was 14. The accusations shook up the Senate race in the deep-red state, and helped catapult it to wide national attention. Moore denied the accusations, maintaining that he was the victim of a conspiracy by liberal groups, mainstream media organizations and others. Corfman claims some of the statements he made defamed her.

These statements include calling Corfman’s accusations “politically motivated,” “completely false” and “malicious.” He also told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he had never met Corfman.

Corfman is not seeking financial compensation in the case beyond its legal costs, her lawyer has said. Instead, she is asking for a judgment, an apology from Moore and a ban to ensure he doesn’t publicly attack her again.

Moore, who refused to concede his loss to his Democratic opponent Doug Jones, continued his campaign argument on Thursday.

“The liberal media, in association with some who want to destroy our Country,” he wrote, “… are doing everything they can to stop me.

“Gays, lesbians, and transgenders have joined forces with those who believe in abortion, sodomy, and destruction of all that we hold dear. Unless we stand together we will lose our Country,” he continued.

He said that “Christians can no longer afford to remain silent in these ‘perilous’ times,” taking aim at “covetous,” “unthankful,” “unholy” and “incontinent” “lovers of pleasure.”

“When I stood to bring these values and truths to Washington D. C. I was forced to fight the Washington establishment, the Republican Party, the Democrat Party, the ultra-liberal media and people such as George Soros, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and many others who fear the truth,” he wrote.

“Please help me fight this battle for the heart and soul of this Nation. Your financial contribution to my legal defense fund is crucial.”

A website he had set up to fundraise said he had secured about $32,000 of a $250,000 goal. Emails sent to supporters show he has been soliciting donations since at least January.

A list included on the donation site, presumably meant to include organizations he was fighting against, included Soros, the frequent target of conservative conspiracy theories; lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents a woman who accused Moore of groping her when she was 16 years old; the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.); and The Washington Post.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 14:30 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Roy Moore issues grievance-laden plea for money: ‘My resources have been depleted’ (WaPo)

[..]

SPOILER

Leigh Corfman filed a defamation lawsuit against Moore in January, part of an emerging legal strategy of litigating sexual misconduct claims through civil lawsuits when the statute of limitations has expired for criminal charges.

In November, Corfman told The Washington Post that Moore took her to his house, undressed her and touched her sexually when he was a 32-year-old district attorney in 1979, and she was 14. The accusations shook up the Senate race in the deep-red state, and helped catapult it to wide national attention. Moore denied the accusations, maintaining that he was the victim of a conspiracy by liberal groups, mainstream media organizations and others. Corfman claims some of the statements he made defamed her.

These statements include calling Corfman’s accusations “politically motivated,” “completely false” and “malicious.” He also told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he had never met Corfman.

Corfman is not seeking financial compensation in the case beyond its legal costs, her lawyer has said. Instead, she is asking for a judgment, an apology from Moore and a ban to ensure he doesn’t publicly attack her again.

Moore, who refused to concede his loss to his Democratic opponent Doug Jones, continued his campaign argument on Thursday.

“The liberal media, in association with some who want to destroy our Country,” he wrote, “… are doing everything they can to stop me.

“Gays, lesbians, and transgenders have joined forces with those who believe in abortion, sodomy, and destruction of all that we hold dear. Unless we stand together we will lose our Country,” he continued.

He said that “Christians can no longer afford to remain silent in these ‘perilous’ times,” taking aim at “covetous,” “unthankful,” “unholy” and “incontinent” “lovers of pleasure.”

“When I stood to bring these values and truths to Washington D. C. I was forced to fight the Washington establishment, the Republican Party, the Democrat Party, the ultra-liberal media and people such as George Soros, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and many others who fear the truth,” he wrote.

“Please help me fight this battle for the heart and soul of this Nation. Your financial contribution to my legal defense fund is crucial.”

A website he had set up to fundraise said he had secured about $32,000 of a $250,000 goal. Emails sent to supporters show he has been soliciting donations since at least January.

A list included on the donation site, presumably meant to include organizations he was fighting against, included Soros, the frequent target of conservative conspiracy theories; lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents a woman who accused Moore of groping her when she was 16 years old; the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.); and The Washington Post.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 14:32 schreef Tchock het volgende:

[..]

Doneert alstublieft aan deze arme homohatende racistische pedofiel. Arme man.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 14:47 schreef Sarah Huckabee Sanders het volgende:
Trump said lots of stuff this week he may not mean

quote:

In 406 days, President Trump has made 2,436 false or misleading claims (Updated March 1, 2018)

https://www.washingtonpos(...)ump-claims-database/

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 12:34 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

"Midterm elections are sometimes regarded as a referendum on the sitting president's and/or incumbent party's performance. The party of the incumbent president tends to lose ground during midterm elections: over the past 21 midterm elections, the President's party has lost an average 30 seats in the House, and an average 4 seats in the Senate; moreover, in only two of those has the President's party gained seats in both houses."

Zie ook: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_midterm_election

"Since the end of World War II, the party in control of the White House has, on average, had a net loss of 26 House seats in midterm elections. Democrats can win control of the House with a net gain of 24 seats in November. They’d need to win two seats to gain a majority in the Senate."

"Average result, since 1970, for President’s Party in midterm when job approval is below 50%: 33 seat loss"

Artikel waar deze quotes uit komen en er ook uitgebreid ingegaan wordt op historische trends bij midterm elections:
https://www.bloomberg.com(...)m-elections-preview/

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 15:27 schreef Monolith het volgende:
Maar het ging me meer om de claim dat "De voorsprong van die partij tussen het moment 8 maanden voor de verkiezingen en eind november bijna altijd uitloopt in plaats van minder wordt". Die zie ik in het artikel zo snel niet onderbouwd worden.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 14:47 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:
Sarah Huckabee Sanders clarifies: Trump said lots of stuff this week he may not mean

[...]

On whether Trump's tariffs decision is final: “This is something he's wanted to do for a while. Never say never, but I think he's pretty committed to moving this forward.”

https://www.washingtonpos(...)week-he-may-not-mean

quote:

Privately, some aides have expressed frustration that Mr. Kushner and his wife, the president's daughter Ivanka Trump, have remained at the White House, despite Mr. Trump at times saying they never should have come to the White House and should leave. Yet aides also noted that Mr. Trump has told the couple that they should keep serving in their roles, even as he has privately asked Mr. Kelly for his help in moving them out.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 09:32 schreef Montov het volgende:

[..]

Een advocaat die van eigen geld iemand betaalt om te zwijgen over een relatie met zijn client net voor de verkiezing. Moerassig.

twitter:

kylegriffin1 twitterde op zaterdag 03-03-2018 om 17:15:31 CREW wants the Office of Government Ethics to investigate whether Trump had an undisclosed interest in the company used to pay Stormy Daniels. https://t.co/Ujfs6e4btJ reageer retweet

quote:

Premiums on the individual market are likely to shoot up and fewer people will be insured next year, thanks to President Donald Trump's latest moves on health care, according to two independent studies.

A report by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, examined the Republican tax bill's elimination of the individual mandate, which requires people to maintain coverage or pay a penalty, along with the White House's recent move to allow customers to purchase cheaper short-term insurance plans for up to a year. These plans can reject coverage based on preexisting conditions and offer more limited benefits than plans approved by Obamacare.

SPOILER

The White House has argued the short-term plans will provide an affordable alternative for some customers who are priced out of Obamacare. But critics say they'll encourage people to buy inadequate insurance and raise premiums for people who need comprehensive care.

The combined effect, according to the Urban Institute report released this week, will increase premiums for insurance plans compliant with the Affordable Care Act will increase 18.2 percent in 2019 in the 43 states that don’t have limits on short-term plans that supersede the new federal rules.

Without the individual mandate, they estimate another 6.4 million people will be uninsured in 2019 while 2.5 million more people will have insurance plans that don't Obamacare's standards of "minimum essential coverage."

Despite covering fewer people, federal health spending will go up by $33 billion because federal subsidies will have to rise to match the higher premiums.

The Congressional Budget Office, the agency responsible for scoring legislation, has previously estimated 4 million fewer people would have insurance without the individual mandate in 2019, eventually rising to 13 million in 2027, and that premiums would increase by 10 percent annually as a result.

The Avalere Health report looked at the effect of another Trump administration move to open up small businesses and self-employed workers to new association health plans that can also skirt Obamacare's regulations to offer cheaper, less comprehensive coverage that can vary according to the age of the company’s workers. They expect 3.2 million people to join one of the new association health plans.

The new association health plans would also provide a cheaper option for many, even if they offered less generous care: The average plan would cost $2,900 less per year versus the group market and $9,700 less compared to the individual market.

But this would be due in large part to selection bias as younger and healthier people would be attracted to association plans that leave out essential health benefits like prescription drugs or mental health while older and sicker people would remain with comprehensive plans that cover chronic illness or expensive medication.

Without fewer healthier customers, Obamacare-compliant individual plans would see premiums rise by 3.5 percent and small group plans by 0.5 percent. The premium increases would prompt another 130,000 people to go without insurance.

Premium increases for the next year would be finalized and announced in the fall, potentially putting health care to the forefront of the midterm elections in November.

Trump has argued that higher premiums on Obamacare exchanges are likely to help pressure Democrats into supporting a repeal and replace bill, while Democrats have accused him of deliberately sabotaging the law to satisfy conservative supporters.

quote:

As Robert Mueller accumulates guilty pleas and cooperating witnesses, President Donald Trump stands behind a final redoubt: Nobody has shown he conspired with Russia in 2016.

Whether Mueller ultimately alleges such a crime remains unknown. He now has help from Trump's former national security advisor, deputy campaign chief and campaign foreign policy advisor — all of whom have admitted felonies.

But whatever the special counsel concludes legally about "collusion," evidence on public display already paints a jarring picture. It shows an American president who has embraced Russian money and illicit favors, while maintaining rhetoric and policies benefiting Russia and undercutting national security officials of his own country.

That in-plain-sight reality gets obscured by the Trump news avalanche. So it's worth reviewing what's been established so far.

SPOILER

Long before running for president, Trump relied on Russian money

His partners in the Trump Soho project in New York, announced in 2006, included a former official of the Soviet Union and a Russian who confessed to felony fraud involving organized crime. Son Donald Trump Jr. said two years later that money was "pouring in from Russia" for "high-end product."

The same year, a Russian oligarch paid Trump $95 million for a Florida mansion Trump bought in 2004 for less than half that price. Showcasing a family golf course in 2013, Eric Trump told a journalist that Russian financiers provided what American banks would not. (The younger Trump later denied saying so.)

Donald Trump openly courted Russian President Vladimir Putin while staging a beauty pageant in Moscow. With help from the same organized-crime-linked felon who collaborated on Trump Soho, Trump sought to develop real estate in the Russian capital while seeking the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

Trump tapped campaign advisors with questionable ties to Moscow

As his 2016 campaign chief, he chose Paul Manafort. A Trump Tower resident since 2006, Manafort had received tens of millions of dollars from Putin allies in Russia and Ukraine.

As a top national security advisor, Trump chose Michael Flynn. In December 2015, Flynn got $45,000 from a Russian propaganda arm to attend a dinner with Putin.

As a foreign policy adviser, he named Carter Page — identified years earlier by U.S. officials as a potential Russian spy. He also tapped the expertise of a little-known 30-year-old named George Papadopoulos.

Trump embraced Russian campaign help, publicly and privately

Soon after becoming a Trump adviser, Papadopoulos heard from a professor in London that Russians had obtained email "dirt" on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He communicated with the professor repeatedly, trying to bring Trump and Putin together.

Weeks later, Donald Trump Jr. arranged a June meeting at Trump Tower to explore a Russian offer of damaging information on Clinton. "I love it," he had written of Moscow's outreach. Manafort and Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump's husband, joined him.

Democratic Party emails that U.S. intelligence officials say Russia stole were released by front groups beginning later that month. Afterward, Trump publicly asked Moscow for more dirt.
"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," he said in July.

In August, Trump's friend Roger Stone previewed forthcoming trouble for Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. In October, Podesta's emails, which U.S. intelligence says Russians also stole, were publicly released.

Trump consistently defends Russia and attacks U.S. officials investigating Russia

During 2016, Trump stood out for his warmth toward Putin. His campaign changed a Republican platform plank on Ukraine to make it more Russia-friendly.

After the election, American intelligence officials announced Russia had intervened to help Trump. In turn, Trump attacked them and emphasized Putin's personal assurances that Russia had not.

Before Trump took office, Flynn and Russia's ambassador secretly discussed sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama. Flynn later admitted lying to investigators about it.

Kushner, recently stripped of his top security clearance, discussed establishing "back channel" communications with Moscow using Russian facilities. When the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians became public last year, the president helped draft a false public statement concealing its purpose.

Alarmed by Russian interference, Congress passed new sanctions. Using discretionary power granted by the law, Trump hasn't implemented them. He fired FBI Director James Comey over the Russia probe. He routinely denounces Mueller's "witch hunt," even after guilty pleas by Flynn, Papadopoulos and Manafort's ex-deputy, Rick Gates.

Just as striking, Trump hasn't mobilized his administration to counter Russian cyberattacks. The National Security Agency director says Trump hasn't asked him to.

"President Putin has clearly come to the conclusion that there's little price to pay," Adm. Michael Rogers told Congress.

Inescapably, the source of that conclusion is the president of the United States.

quote:

Former Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday that special counsel Robert Mueller likely already has a case for obstruction of justice against President Trump, and is waiting to bring the case before a grand jury.

In an interview on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," Holder expressed faith that the sprawling Mueller probe would result in more charges.

SPOILER

"Well I think that you technically have an obstruction of justice case that already exists," Holder said. "I've known Bob Mueller for 20, 30 years. My guess is, he's just trying to make the case as good as he possibly can."

During his appearance on the show, Holder also defended calls from Democratic mega-donor Tom Steyer to make Trump's supposed dereliction of duty on confronting Russia over election meddling a campaign issue.

"But I think that Steyer is absolutely right in the sense that Trump is derelict in his duties," Holder said. "We were attacked. It wasn't a physical attack, it was an electronic attack, on our most vital of systems, and he's done nothing to prepare us for what is to come. Because they're still coming."

"And he's done nothing to hold the Russians accountable in spite of the fact that this dysfunctional Congress passed sanctions that he has refused to implement," Holder continued.

"And that for me is breathtaking, unforgivable and ultimately something the American people have to hold him responsible for."

Mueller's probe expanded last month with the indictment of 13 Russian nationals for alleged efforts to interfere in the 2016 election by using fake social media profiles to spread disinformation and divisive rhetoric among Americans.

Holder, who served as attorney general under former President Obama, warned Trump in December that he could face mass protests if he chooses to shut down the Mueller probe.

"ABSOLUTE RED LINE: the firing of Bob Mueller or crippling the special counsel's office. If removed or meaningfully tampered with, there must be mass, popular, peaceful support of both," Holder tweeted in December.

quote:

Former CIA chief John Brennan on Friday predicted "rough waters ahead," particularly on international issues, saying President Trump is "unstable, inept, inexperienced, and also unethical."

In an interview with MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," Brennan told host Nicolle Wallace that the president was "ill prepared" to take on the duties of commander in chief, particularly growing military aggression from Russia and North Korea.

"It is no secret to anybody that Donald Trump was very ill prepared and unexperienced in terms of dealing with matters that a head of state needs to deal with, head of government, and I think this is now coming to roost," Brennan said.

"Our country needs to have confidence that we're going to be able to deal with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who is flexing his muscles once again on the military front, that we can deal with North Korea, that we can deal with these issues. And if we have somebody in the Oval Office who is unstable, inept, inexperienced, and also unethical -- we really have rough waters ahead."

SPOILER

The former CIA chief under President Obama went on to hit Trump for tweeting at actor Alec Baldwin over his "Saturday Night Live" impression of the president rather than responding to Putin, who announced the previous day the development of missiles he claimed would render defense systems "useless."

"When I hear what Vladimir Putin was saying just yesterday about the nuclear capabilities he has, the president of the United States is tweeting about Alec Baldwin this morning, I mean, where is your sense of priorities?" Brennan asked.

"I think a lot of Americans are looking at what's happening with a sense of -- this is surreal."

The Russian leader told lawmakers this week that new intercontinental ballistic missiles developed by the country could reach almost any target in the world.

"I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed to contain our country's development ... you have failed to contain Russia," he said.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dismissed Putin's comments in a statement to CNN.

"President Putin has confirmed what the United States government has known all along, which Russia has denied. Russia has been developing destabilizing weapons systems for over a decade, in direct violation of its treaty obligations."

quote:

Questions are being raised about a small Nebraska company awarded the first construction contract for President Trump's long-promised border wall.

The Associated Press reported Friday that Nebraska-based SWF Constructors, which won an $11 million federal contract in November as part of a project to replace a roughly 2-mile stretch of border fencing in California, is the offshoot of a New York-based firm with a history of allegedly failing to pay subcontractors.

SWF is owned by Coastal Environmental Group, a construction firm based in Edgewood, N.Y., that has been sued multiple times for refusing to pay subcontractors, the AP reported. The Interior Department also found $2 million in questionable spending from the company in a 2016 audit.

SPOILER

The findings of that audit should have led to Coastal Environmental Group being flagged as a problem company but it was not, according to the AP.

SWF was listed on the bid for the border wall contract, rather than Coastal Environmental Group. Richard Silva, who is listed in government documents as the primary point of contact for both companies, did not return the AP's requests for comment.

Coastal Environmental Group was sued by the federal government in 2011 on behalf of a subcontractor, Enviroworks Inc., which alleged that Coastal had failed to pay nearly $400,000 in labor and equipments costs and broke a profit-sharing agreement. That lawsuit was settled in 2015, according to the AP.

The federal government also sued Coastal in 2014 on behalf of another subcontractor, SF Marina Systems. That lawsuit accused Coastal of failing to pay SF Marina $175,000 for construction costs.

The AP noted that the roughly 2-mile stretch of border fencing in California is a sliver of Trump's broader proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zaterdag 03-03-2018 om 18:53:50 If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S. They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance! reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 18:57 schreef nostra het volgende:
Man man man.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zaterdag 03-03-2018 om 18:53:50 If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S. They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance! reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 18:57 schreef nostra het volgende:
Man man man.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zaterdag 03-03-2018 om 18:53:50 If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S. They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance! reageer retweet

quote:

We’ve known all along that Donald Trump is belligerently ignorant about economics (and many other things). But up to this point that hasn’t mattered much. He took office amid a sustained recovery that began under his predecessor, and that recovery had already lifted the U.S. economy to the point where “normal” policy rules apply: interest rates are above zero, monetary policy is effective again, so short-term economic management is in the fairly reliable hands of the Federal Reserve, not the chaotic Trump White House. What the president didn’t know couldn’t hurt us.

But there was always reason to be concerned about the possibility of crisis — either a crisis created by outside forces, like some kind of financial collapse, or one created by the administration itself. In that case the Fed’s rationality wouldn’t be enough. And it’s starting to look like we have a trade policy crisis on our hands.

Trump has always had a thing about trade, which he sees the way he sees everything: as a test of power and masculinity. It’s all about who sells more: if we run a trade surplus we win, if we run a trade deficit, we lose.

This is, of course, nonsense.

SPOILER

Trade isn’t a zero-sum game: it raises the productivity and wealth of the world economy. To take a not at all random example, it makes a lot of sense to produce aluminum, a process that uses vast amounts of electricity, in countries like Canada, which have abundant hydropower. So the U.S. gains from importing Canadian aluminum, whether or not we run a trade deficit with Canada. (As it happens, we don’t, but that’s pretty much beside the point.)

It’s true that trade deficits can be a problem when the economy is depressed, and unemployment is high. That’s why I, like many other economists, wanted us to take a tougher stance on Chinese currency policy back in 2010, when we had around 9 percent unemployment. But the case for worrying about trade deficits, like the case for running budget deficits, has largely evaporated now that unemployment is back to 4 percent.

So we can’t “win” a trade war. What we can do is start a cycle of tit-for-tat, and when it comes to trade, America — which accounts for 9 percent of world exports and 14 percent of world imports — is by no means a dominant superpower.

A cycle of retaliation would shrink overall world trade, making the world as a whole, America very much included, poorer. Perhaps even more important in the near term, it would be highly disruptive. We live in an era of global supply chains: just about everything produced in America (and everywhere else) uses inputs produced in other countries. Your new car may well have a chassis assembled in the U.S., an engine and wiring system made in Mexico, electronics from Korea and China, and, of course, steel and aluminum from Canada.

Could we produce cars without all those imported components? Yes, given time. But getting from here to there would be a huge mess: hundreds if not thousands of factories would have to close or convert over to other uses. Never mind the net loss of jobs from a full-scale trade war, which would in the end probably be a relatively small number. The point instead is that the gross job losses would be huge, as millions of workers would be forced to change jobs, move to new places, and more. And many of them would suffer losses on the way that they would never get back.

Oh, and companies on the losing end would lose trillions in stock value.

So the idea that a trade war would be “good” and “easy to win” is surpassingly stupid. And the way Trump seems to be starting his war is also remarkably stupid: start by protecting goods that are inputs to industries that employ far more people than those being protected? Do so in the name of national security — a justification that is, for good reason, almost never invoked — when the biggest source of those inputs is that hostile foreign power Canada?

In themselves, these tariffs aren’t that big a deal. But if they’re a sign of what future policy is going to look like, they’re really, really bad.

quote:

After making good on tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks that business leaders wanted, President Trump has turned to a part of his economic agenda that many of them feared: tariffs.

Those leaders worry that Mr. Trump, by imposing stiff and sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminum, will set off a trade war with other countries. The global tit-for-tat could hurt American exporters and raise costs for manufacturers that rely on a vast supply chain around the world.

If that happens, it will crimp economic growth, undermining the stimulative effects of Mr. Trump's deregulation push and his signature $1.5 trillion tax cut.

The odds of such an outcome now appear to be rising, prompting congressional Republicans to push Mr. Trump in public and in private to reconsider. "If the president goes through with this, it will kill American jobs -- that's what every trade war ultimately does," Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, said on Friday. "So much losing."

So far, Mr. Trump is not having any of that criticism, saying on Twitter on Friday that "trade wars are good, and easy to win."

That's not how trade wars usually go.

SPOILER

Even the prospect of a trade war could hurt the economic expansion underway. That's because any uncertainty can prompt companies to curtail investment or hold off on hiring.

If other countries follow up on their threats to retaliate, the pain could be significant. Beyond tariffs, their tools include taking strategic strikes at certain industries or taking their grievances to the World Trade Organization.

Any actions threaten the global supply chains on which the American economy is heavily dependent. The number of workers who will lose out if countries are cut off from America far exceeds the number who stand to gain from the pending tariffs.

"Industries that buy steel and aluminum, not to mention agricultural exporters, employ many times more people than the industries that the president wants to protect," said Peter A. Petri, an economist and trade expert at Brandeis University's International Business School. "Whether we go through with his approach is anyone's guess, but business investment depends on predictable policy, and relentless chaos takes its toll even if cooler heads prevail on the policies that the president is tweeting about."

Mr. Trump's planned tariffs would, in effect, levy a tax of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum. The goal is to counter China, Russia and other countries that have flooded the global markets with cheap products and made it harder for the American steel industry to compete.

If put into effect, the tariffs would raise the price of steel and aluminum, squeezing automakers, beverage manufacturers and other industries that buy a lot of those materials. That would increase prices for consumers, kill some jobs in those industries or both.

The tariffs would almost certainly provoke a response from America's trading partners -- and not just China and Russia, because they would apply to every other country. On Friday, the European Union threatened to retaliate by imposing tariffs of its own on some goods from America, including bluejeans, bourbon and motorcycles.

If the back-and-forth stopped there, the American economy would lose 0.1 percent of its output this year, said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody's Analytics. That loss would cost the country 190,000 jobs.

What worries many economists is the prospect that the retaliation will go even further. A cycle of increasingly harsh tariffs would slam the brakes on global growth.

Here is one way the dispute could worsen: By provoking responses from Canada and Mexico, the tariffs could derail the current renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Mr. Trump could pull the United States out of that agreement, which would erect new and damaging trade barriers on agricultural exports from states such as Iowa.

Another possibility is that other countries could file complaints with the World Trade Organization. The W.T.O. could declare that the tariffs violated global trading rules, but the Trump administration, which has marginalized the organization, could choose to ignore it.

Such a move would stir chaos in the global trading regime. It would be like ejecting the referee from a playoff basketball game. A free-for-all could ensue, with countries levying tariffs or subsidizing domestic exporters in ways the W.T.O. would never allow.

Mr. Zandi estimates that a Nafta breakdown would cost the United States 1.8 million jobs. He calculates that a full global trade war, while far less likely, would carry much higher risks, including nearly four million lost American jobs.

"The economic fallout from such a war could be serious," he said, "ending in a global recession."

Others expressed less concern: In an era of globalization, the talk of retaliation may be stronger than the actual action. And some economists, particularly those on the left, even saw a possible bright side.

Jared Bernstein, an economist in the Obama administration who is now at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, expects some counter-tariffs, maybe from China on food products.

"You always hear trade war at these moments," Mr. Bernstein said. "That doesn't mean that's always wrong, but it usually is."

Thea M. Lee, a trade economist and the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, said the tariffs could actually help global markets. They would punish countries that overproduce steel and aluminum, she said, and bring stability and certainty to producers of those metals in the United States.

"It's not actually in anybody's interest to spiral downward and get into a massive retaliatory situation," Ms. Lee said. "I think there will be some immediate reactions, but I don't think it will spiral out of control."

From the beginning of his insurgent 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump has seen "winning" on trade as critical for the economy. Reducing trade deficits, he has argued, will work in tandem with lowering taxes and reducing federal regulations to supercharge growth.

Mr. Trump took several steps last year to freeze or roll back regulations, and he signed a $1.5 trillion tax-cut bill in December. He also took initial steps to reorient trade policy, pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and embarking on the fractious renegotiation of Nafta.

While economic growth accelerated, the trade deficit in goods and services widened to $566 billion last year, the largest amount since 2008. The goods deficit with China hit $375 billion, a record.

The tariffs that Mr. Trump announced Thursday were his boldest move yet on trade. They were also a reminder to the Republican establishment that his theory of the economy is sometimes at odds with traditional free-market conservatism, despite much overlap.

On Thursday, the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board called the tariffs the "biggest policy blunder of his presidency." The top two Republicans in Congress -- the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan -- were imploring Mr. Trump privately to reconsider.

Mr. Trump, though, casts himself as protecting an industry that he sees as endangered. Raw steel production in America remains higher than it was 25 years ago, but it is down significantly from the 1970s. Just under 140,000 Americans work in the steel industry, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute.

While Mr. Trump's stand is likely to give him a boost in industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, which were both key to his 2016 victory, a trade war may harm other manufacturing strongholds that are home to his base voters.

Last year, researchers at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program reported that smaller metropolitan areas would be disproportionately hurt by a trade shock. The 10 that were most vulnerable, because of their economic reliance on exports, were in Indiana, Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina and Alabama -- all states Mr. Trump carried.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 18:57 schreef nostra het volgende:
Man man man.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zaterdag 03-03-2018 om 18:53:50 If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S. They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance! reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 19:38 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Er *moeten* zolangzamerhand toch een paar slimmere Republikeinen ¹) zijn die denken "Tering, die geintjes gaan mij miljarden kosten"?

^{1) hoe dom ze ook zijn of lijken, er is altijd een helft die slimmer is dan de andere helft}

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 19:50 schreef SureD1 het volgende:
Volgens de Dialy Mail (ja ja ik weet het) heeft iemand zichzelf op de North Lawn van het Witte Huis voor zijn kop geschoten. POTUS heeft er geen last van, die golft dit weekend op Mar-a-Lago...

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 19:50 schreef SureD1 het volgende:
Volgens de Dialy Mail (ja ja ik weet het) heeft iemand zichzelf op de North Lawn van het Witte Huis voor zijn kop geschoten. POTUS heeft er geen last van, die golft dit weekend op Mar-a-Lago...

quote:

A man shot himself in front of the White House on Saturday, a law enforcement source told CNN.

"Secret Service personnel are responding to reports of a person who allegedly suffered a self-inflicted gun shot wound along the north fence line of @WhiteHouse," the Secret Service tweeted.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump are at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. They are scheduled to return to Washington on Saturday night for the annual Gridiron Club Dinner.

"We are aware of the incident," deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said. "The President has been briefed. I refer you to the Secret Service for any more information."

The Secret Service tweeted an update on the situation moments later: "No other reported injuries related to the incident at @WhiteHouse."

Secret Service spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan said the incident occurred on the north fence line, the victim suffered a single gunshot wound and Secret Service personnel did not fire any shots. She would not comment on the status of the victim.

The agency also tweeted that pedestrian and vehicular traffic around the White House has been affected by the incident.

This story is breaking and will be updated.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 19:50 schreef SureD1 het volgende:
POTUS heeft er geen last van, die golft dit weekend op Mar-a-Lago...

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 21:02 schreef martijnde3de het volgende:
twee ( serieuze ) democraten zijn al kandidaat voor 2020:

U.S. Representative from Maryland, John Delaney
https://en.wikipedia.org/(...)ntial_campaign,_2020
https://www.johnkdelaney.com/

Andrew Yang ( entrepreneur, miljonair )
https://www.yang2020.com/

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 21:02 schreef martijnde3de het volgende:
twee ( serieuze ) democraten zijn al kandidaat voor 2020:

U.S. Representative from Maryland, John Delaney
https://en.wikipedia.org/(...)ntial_campaign,_2020
https://www.johnkdelaney.com/

Andrew Yang ( entrepreneur, miljonair )
https://www.yang2020.com/

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 21:17 schreef livelink het volgende:

[..]

Alsjeblieft niet nogmaals een rijke enterpreneur. Been there, done that.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 21:22 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Er zitten er genoeg in de Amerikaanse politiek hoor. Trump is geen uitzondering.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 21:24 schreef livelink het volgende:

[..]

Vooruit, als hij politieke ervaring heeft wordt het een ander verhaal, maar ik vind het verdacht als er alleen maar bij een kandidaat staat dat hij enterpreneur en miljonair is.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 21:26 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Tja, Bloomberg had ook geen politieke functie voordat hij burgemeester van New York werd.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 21:30 schreef livelink het volgende:

[..]

Burgemeester vind ik dan toch net iets anders dan president. En natuurlijk, het kan goed gaan. Ik ben net even de website van Yang aan het bestuderen. Hij is voor een basisinkomen. Gedurfd wel.

twitter:

LouDobbs twitterde op zaterdag 03-03-2018 om 17:30:35 Sessions has fallen ill, he's incapacitated in some fashion, or he's been coopted or captured: to preserve any dignity, for the good of the country he needs to resign. #MAGA @realDonaldTrump #TrumpTrain #AmericaFirst https://t.co/D0q4ff2JVI reageer retweet

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2018 00:27 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

LouDobbs twitterde op zaterdag 03-03-2018 om 17:30:35 Sessions has fallen ill, he's incapacitated in some fashion, or he's been coopted or captured: to preserve any dignity, for the good of the country he needs to resign. #MAGA @realDonaldTrump #TrumpTrain #AmericaFirst https://t.co/D0q4ff2JVI reageer retweet

Sessions ligt ook behoorlijk onder vuur weer inmiddels.

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2018 00:32 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]
integer te handelen ... is dat het probleem?

quote:

A simple meal, fraught with implication.

On Wednesday night, the head of a federal agency went out to dinner with his deputy and the No. 3 official at his department at a posh restaurant in Washington, DC.

That does not, on its face, sound like a particularly interesting or unusual turn of events. But in the mixed-up world of Trump-era Washington, a dinner with colleagues at Central Michel Richard isn’t just a dinner with colleagues — it’s another subplot in the intrigue of Donald Trump scandal.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 21:21 schreef Arcee het volgende:

[..]

Joseph P. Kennedy zou wellicht ook een gooi kunnen doen.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 21:17 schreef livelink het volgende:

[..]

Alsjeblieft niet nogmaals een rijke enterpreneur. Been there, done that.

quote:

Op zaterdag 3 maart 2018 21:26 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Tja, Bloomberg had ook geen politieke functie voordat hij burgemeester van New York werd.

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2018 01:05 schreef martijnde3de het volgende:

[..]

Bloomberg de eeuwige kandidaat, die uiteindelijk geen kandidaat werd:)

quote:

President Trump on Saturday praised a move by China's Communist Party to abolish presidential term limits, and suggested that maybe the United States would "give that a shot some day."

"He's now president for life. President for life. And he's great," Trump told Republican donors during a closed-door even in Florida. A recording of Trump's remarks was obtained by CNN.

"And look, he was able to do that," he added. "I think it's great. Maybe we'll give that a shot some day."

The Hill

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2018 00:32 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Met zulke vrienden heb je geen vijanden meer nodig. Het is me ook volstrekt onduidelijk waarom hij onder vuur zou liggen. Ik ben het politiek niet met hem eens, maar hij lijkt, binnen het conservatieve kader, integer te handelen ... is dat het probleem?

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2018 02:21 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
[..]

quote:

Op zondag 4 maart 2018 08:07 schreef PippenScottie het volgende:
Het zegt trouwens veel over de Republikeinse partij anno 2018 als je Jeff Sessions als een relatief integere politicus moet zien.

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Op zondag 4 maart 2018 10:08 schreef Eyjafjallajoekull het volgende:
Trump wel nu ook heffingen op Europese auto's....

https://www.volkskrant.nl(...)-op-auto-s~a4577305/

Ben benieuwd of dit allemaal doorzet of gewoon grootspraak is.

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Op zondag 4 maart 2018 10:18 schreef saparmurat_niyazov het volgende:

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Het zou ook gewoon schadelijk zijn voor duizenden banen die de Europese auto-industrie in de USA zelf oplevert, niet alleen voor de fabrieken en toeleveranciers zelf maar ook dealers, garages, etc. Maar ja, zo ver zal Trump vast niet doorgedacht hebben.

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Op zondag 4 maart 2018 10:08 schreef Eyjafjallajoekull het volgende:
Trump wel nu ook heffingen op Europese auto's....

https://www.volkskrant.nl(...)-op-auto-s~a4577305/

Ben benieuwd of dit allemaal doorzet of gewoon grootspraak is.

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Op zondag 4 maart 2018 10:40 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
Dus als zowel het Congres als het Huis Trump oproept om nieuwe sancties op te leggen aan Rusland (dat overduidelijk de Amerikaanse verkiezingen heeft proberen te beïnvloeden), geeft hij niet thuis. Ook durft hij geen stevige taal te uiten richting Poetin.

Tegelijkertijd start hij wel een handelsoorlog met de EU, een bondgenoot van de VS. En smijt hij bovendien ook nog eens met dreigende woorden.

En wie profiteert hiervan? Iedereen behalve de VS en de EU.

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From WaPo

President Trump’s decision Thursday to impose crippling tariffs on the imports of steel and aluminum took many by surprise — particularly investors, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the day’s trading down more than 400 points, or 1.7 percent, at 24,608.

But one billionaire investor and former Trump adviser, Carl Icahn, was seemingly unvexed, having dumped a million shares tied to the steel industry a week before the president announced 25 percent tariffs for foreign-made steel.

A Feb. 22 SEC filing shows Icahn sold off his $31.3 million stake in the Manitowoc Company, which is a leading global manufacturer of cranes for heavy construction based in Manitowoc, Wis., according to the company’s website. Since Trump’s announcement Thursday, Manitowoc’s stock has plummeted to about $26. Icahn — who has had majority interest in several companies including Motorola, Xerox, Family Dollar and Pep Boys — had sold his shares for about $32 to $34 each, according to the SEC disclosure, which was first reported by Think Progress.

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Looking at Trump’s ‘Beautiful Wall’ (NYTimes)

According to the White House, a “great” and “beautiful” wall is to rise over Otay Mesa in eastern San Diego, Calif., modeled after one of the eight enormous prototypes on display there that are visible for miles around. I thought I could go see and lay hands on the slabs.

So on a recent visit to San Diego, I went to the Otay Mesa border crossing and drove around a maze of parched industrial alleys and postapocalyptic “Mad Max” landscapes trying to find these monuments to President Trump’s vision of the future.

Frustrated by their mirage-like distance, I finally parked at the end of a road from which I could see the original border fence stretching far into the distance, with houses built up against it on the Mexican side and nothing but desert on the American side.

After some quick research, I realized you cannot visit the proposed wall sections without Border Patrol approval. The prototypes are inside a construction site surrounded by razor wire. Turns out, the government is worried about protesters. In other words, taxpayer money is being used to guard the prototypes not against Mexicans, but against…taxpayers.

SPOILER

The San Diego Police Department reportedly spent $227,000 in overtime last year so officers could protect the site, plus $5,000 to cover their meals.

Otay Mesa, right along the Mexican border, was once inhabited by the Kumeyaay Indians. Their nation extended from the Pacific Ocean to the Colorado River. Tribal historians say they lived there for 12,000 years.

Of course, that was before undocumented immigrants invaded, and brought with them parking lots, McDonald’s and endless storage units to tame the land. A new border divided the Kumeyaay’s land, and cavalry in white Border Patrol trucks took charge.

The Supreme Court ruled last Monday that the Trump administration can’t end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for young immigrants this month, as it wanted to do. So the president will combat immigration with fear tactics and the beginnings of the Great Wall of Trump, which he will visit in mid-March. Critics are calling this trip, his first visit to California since the election, Mr. Trump’s “hallucination tour.”

In his State of the Union address, Mr. Trump said, “Americans are dreamers, too,” a line that he no doubt felt resolved the DACA issue and the immigration debate for us all. I could feel Stephen Miller’s goose bumps all the way out on the mesa where the eight sections of the “beautiful wall” stand, garbage collecting around them.

In Mr. Trump’s imagination, the wall prototypes rise bold and free on American land, east of the highly secure border crossing, and just past the new highway lanes by which trucks bring cargo from Mexico into the United States, and carry cargo back into Mexico.

But those new fast highways are the better monuments to immigration. Before these truck lanes were built, San Diego County lost an estimated $248 million in revenue in 2008 because of delays and 2,256 jobs.

The Trump administration also sells the public the myth that these panels, some made of concrete, others of varied metal grids, will improve border security. They are impressive. “You can see them really well in Tijuana, just from the backyards,” my brother said. “They look like eight raised middle fingers.” The joke there is that the project is a very expensive retort to former President Vicente Fox’s relentless taunting of Mr. Trump.

A Mexican man told me: “We don’t pay attention to them. We’ll get the contracts to paint them and repair them later.”

Otay Mesa is a liminal zone: The mountains nearby are serene, and the ground is dry and scrubby. It’s the perfect place for one of our catastrophic California fires to consume. The American side is a maze of narrow roads and sunburned highways, industrial buildings and trucks parked on empty roads. You may even stumble upon a little ranch between empty lots and see a cow chewing on melons. The prototypes are not visible along the main streets.

On the Mexican side, Tijuana crashes into the actual border fence like a flood hitting a dam. We are often told that the city is an industrial wasteland — it’s important to the illusion that those people over there in Mexico are not fully human, that there are no happy families or hard-working folks growing geraniums in their backyards. No kids playing ball, and no dogs. Everybody and everything is hungry as hell. The Trump narrative needs Mexico to be a scary place, crawling with narcos and rapists.

In Tijuana, houses flow across the land in a fractal pattern until they abruptly stop. From a distance, this imaginary line seems like magic. But it’s actually just a dirt road, on which a white Border Patrol vehicle putters, that contains a whole city.

In January, the orchestra conductor and percussionist Steven Schick led a concerto at the seaward end of the wall out west, still on Kumeyaay land. His great idea was to have a group of Mexican musicians on the Tijuana side, and a group of American musicians on the American side play a concert through the wall. Invisible to one another, but all the while creating art that transcended borders. A revolutionary act. A humane act.

Mr. Schick told me he had been in Berlin during the days of its wall. He said the clean side, the controlled and shiny and militarized side of the Great Soviet Era Wall, was in East Berlin. It looked exactly like the American side of our border fence — trucks, armed guards, cameras, terminators with black helmets on ATVs, dogs holding the American audience back from the wall. Contact must be avoided at all costs.

But the Mexican side of the wall was ablaze with color. It had become an open-air art gallery. A graffiti magnet. A place of murals. And taco stands. And art carts and strolling musicians and ice cream vendors.

“In Berlin, that side of the wall, the colorful celebratory space, was on the Western side,” Mr. Schick told me. “The military, secure side, was Soviet.”

Who was free, and who was the prisoner? Who is the other? Americans are dreamers too. Here’s my dream: There is no them, there is only us.

twitter:

W7VOA twitterde op zondag 04-03-2018 om 05:39:14 More excerpts from @hunterw: @POTUS also mocked @Oprah and @SenWarren, again calling her “Pocahontas” and quipped she suggested he and Rex Tillerson should smoke a “peace pipe” with the Koreans. Trump accused @RepAdamSchiff of leaking to the press about the #Russia probe. reageer retweet

twitter:

W7VOA twitterde op zondag 04-03-2018 om 05:14:42 As to #Twitter, @POTUS jokes it's an important form of communication, otherwise how could generals Kelly and McMaster know what they’re supposed to say that day. reageer retweet

twitter:

W7VOA twitterde op zondag 04-03-2018 om 05:04:41 "So many people have been leaving the White House. It’s invigorating since you want turnover. I like chaos. It really is good. Who’s going to be the next to leave? Steve Miller, or Melania?" reageer retweet

twitter:

W7VOA twitterde op zondag 04-03-2018 om 05:03:16 "And it’s been a very tough year for CNN. They’ve lost a tremendous amount of credibility this year. And your best reporter, Steve Bannon. That guy leaked more than the Titanic. Boy did he leak." reageer retweet

twitter:

W7VOA twitterde op zondag 04-03-2018 om 05:00:29 On @VP: "I reallly am very proud to call him The Apprentice. But lately he's showing a particularly keen interest in the news these days. He is asking has he been impeached yet? I don't like that." reageer retweet

twitter:

W7VOA twitterde op zondag 04-03-2018 om 05:01:10 "Mike, you can't be impeached when there's no crime. I thought that was going to get a much better laugh. Melania said use it, it's good." reageer retweet

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Op zondag 4 maart 2018 12:04 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Dat mag men inderdaad even goed onderzoeken.

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Op zondag 4 maart 2018 11:38 schreef Hyperdude het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]

In tekst:

[..]

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Op zondag 4 maart 2018 12:46 schreef martijnde3de het volgende:

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Denk je dat gaat gebeuren dan?

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Op zondag 4 maart 2018 13:05 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

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Het is natuurlijk de vraag wanneer het precies handelen met voorkennis is. Het zong al enige tijd rond dat Trump dit van plan was.

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Op zondag 4 maart 2018 13:13 schreef martijnde3de het volgende:

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De grens tussen slimheid en voorkennis is vaak heel dun.

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Op zondag 4 maart 2018 13:17 schreef Monolith het volgende:

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Niet in dit soort gevallen hoor. Of je hebt niet-publieke informatie of je hebt het niet. Het lastige zit hem eerder in de bewijslast.

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Op zondag 4 maart 2018 13:25 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Trump beloofde tijdens de campagne niet dat hij een handelsoorlog met Canada of de EU zou starten.

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Op zondag 4 maart 2018 13:29 schreef martijnde3de het volgende:

Donald Trump on the trade deficit with China

Trump's Sharp Warnings for China

Donald Trump - America is Ruined, China is laughing

U.S. economic collapse: Donald Trump on America vs. China

Kan nog lang doorgaan

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Op zondag 4 maart 2018 13:32 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Ja. China China China China. Ondertussen prijst hij Xi en begint een handelsoorlog met bondgenoten.