quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:38 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Dus wij mogen vooral geen kritiek uiten op het agressieve buitenlandbeleid van de Russen en in plaats daarvan Poetin naar de mond praten?

Denk niet dat je held Donald 'never back down' Trump het daarmee eens is.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:41 schreef SureD1 het volgende:
Verdorie, ik had die poll eruit moeten slopen, flauwekulletjes...

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:42 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Kan toch nog?

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:41 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Nee, maar als je dat doet moet je wel zorgen dat je een sterke positie hebt.

Wat de EU doet of heeft gedaan is aan de ene kant verder naar het Oosten opschuiven en aan de andere kant de economie naar de tering draaien en het leger wegbezuinigen.

De counter moves (Georgie, Oekraine) waren voor Putin niet moeilijk, omdat iedere keer letterlijk de weg open lag.

Het is niet de vraag of Putin iets gaat flikken, de vraag is wat je er tegenover kunt stellen. De EU momenteel vrij weinig. Als je twee gebroken benen hebt moet je niet een kickboxer gaan uitdagen.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:45 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Dus in Nintex hebben we medestander gevonden voor het opschroeven van de Defensie-uitgaven en de oprichting van een EU-leger. Had ik niet achter je gezocht.

Want van Trump hoeven we volgens jou immers niets te verwachten en naar de pijpen dansen van de Russen vind jij ook geen goed plan.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:47 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Een EU leger is een slecht plan, want dat gaat op dezelfde manier als de Euro.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:47 schreef Ulx het volgende:
De EU kan genoeg. Die Russen durven alleen maar tegen kleine landjes. Frankrijk en het VK hebben natuurlijk ook gewoon atoombommen. En Frankrijk heeft bijvoorbeeld de policy dat ze rustig zo'n ding als eerste gooien als het moet.
Verder staat FN natuurlijk gewoon over de grens. Kogels zijn er zo. Het is niet dat de wapens allemaal amerikaans zijn.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:51 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Ik bedoel: als het Turkse leger al Russische vliegtuigen neer kan schieten. Als Syrische opstandelingen dat al kunnen....

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:51 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Ik bedoel: als het Turkse leger al Russische vliegtuigen neer kan schieten. Als Syrische opstandelingen dat al kunnen....

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:52 schreef SureD1 het volgende:

[..]

Dit... roestige zooi...

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:56 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Ik zou graag zien dat men een extra squadron F35's aanschaft hoor. Een stuk of 50-60 van die dingen lijkt me wel handig om te hebben. Net als wat a-29's of zo voor COIN missies omdat die veel goedkoper zijn.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:53 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Vooral blijven doen, Rusland onderschatten en doen alsof ze alleen maar ouwe meuk hebben .

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:52 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Ja met westerse wapens

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:57 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Men?

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:57 schreef SureD1 het volgende:

[..]

Ze hebben wel een heleboel roestige zooi... ik onderschat ze niet, maar je moet ze ook niet overschatten. Hun kracht zit in aantallen...

Ik acht het niet onmogelijk dat Poetin wat probeert met de Baltics, maar meer zoals Hitler in 36-38 met het Rijnland, Sudetenland en zo... hij zal niet zo stom zijn om vol richting Westen te stomen, dan komt er hoe dan ook een reactie.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:59 schreef clumsy_clown het volgende:
In ander nieuws, morgen heeft Trump een overleg met videogames-makers, in de hoop op die manier veiligheid op scholen te verbeteren .

.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:58 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

NL

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:00 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Gaat niet lukken voor die 1,5 miljard extra voor Defensie die nu is toegezegd in het regeerakkoord.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:02 schreef SureD1 het volgende:

[..]

Klopt, wat dat betreft is het weer juni 1939 hier...

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:02 schreef SureD1 het volgende:

[..]

Klopt, wat dat betreft is het weer juni 1939 hier...

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:07 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Aanzienlijk lager, volgens deze site ... maar goed, we hebben nu niet echt een buren waar oorlog ook maar enigszins waarschijnlijk lijkt.

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:09 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Is dat de Belgische revolutie rond 1830? Dat was toch in een paar weken bekeken? Vraag me af waarom de defensie uitgaven toen zo stegen

twitter:

CNBCnow twitterde op woensdag 07-03-2018 om 21:09:28 BREAKING: White House says Trump may exempt Canada, Mexico from tariffs https://t.co/wxJ7EuXCNS https://t.co/XZ651YOUcQ reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:14 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

CNBCnow twitterde op woensdag 07-03-2018 om 21:09:28 BREAKING: White House says Trump may exempt Canada, Mexico from tariffs https://t.co/wxJ7EuXCNS https://t.co/XZ651YOUcQ reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:59 schreef clumsy_clown het volgende:
In ander nieuws, morgen heeft Trump een overleg met videogames-makers, in de hoop op die manier veiligheid op scholen te verbeteren .

.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:00 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Wat revolutionair van Trump.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:43 schreef Wombcat het volgende:

[..]

Beetje jaren 90.

twitter:

DeSpeld twitterde op woensdag 07-03-2018 om 13:28:56 Sparen voor je vakantie? Kom dan werken in het Witte Huis! - Wij zoeken kanjers op de gebieden communicatie, veiligheid en strategie https://t.co/epuIhEwraV https://t.co/aXb4JCclG5 reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:14 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

CNBCnow twitterde op woensdag 07-03-2018 om 21:09:28 BREAKING: White House says Trump may exempt Canada, Mexico from tariffs https://t.co/wxJ7EuXCNS https://t.co/XZ651YOUcQ reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:49 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Goed. Nunberg gaat op vrijdag voor de grand jury getuigen en gaat al zijn communicatie met de mensen over wie het gevraagd is, zoals gesommeerd, overdragen.... het bleek *gasp* makkelijker dan hij dacht om dat te doen ...

https://www.bloomberg.com(...)-comply-with-mueller

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:55 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Hij was niet zo stom al zijn emails te geven?

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:58 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Kennelijk is het hem gelukt te filteren....

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:58 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Kennelijk is het hem gelukt te filteren....

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 22:02 schreef Falco het volgende:

[..]

Het zou wel lollig zijn als zijn mail gesorteerd bleef op datum. En dat ie door de hele lijst gaat en handmatig elke mail van Roger Stone of Steve Bannon apart te forwarden naar robert.mueller@justice.gov oid.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 22:02 schreef Falco het volgende:

[..]

Het zou wel lollig zijn als zijn mail gesorteerd bleef op datum. En dat ie door de hele lijst gaat en handmatig elke mail van Roger Stone of Steve Bannon apart te forwarden naar robert.mueller@justice.gov oid.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:49 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Goed. Nunberg gaat op vrijdag voor de grand jury getuigen en gaat al zijn communicatie met de mensen over wie het gevraagd is, zoals gesommeerd, overdragen.... het bleek *gasp* makkelijker dan hij dacht om dat te doen ...

https://www.bloomberg.com(...)-comply-with-mueller

quote:

"Look, the president has addressed these directly and made very well clear that none of these allegations are true. This case has already been won in arbitration and anything beyond that I would refer you to the president's outside counsel," Sanders said Wednesday.

Sanders questioned on Stormy Daniels payout at press briefing - Daily Mail

quote:

“Yeah. And he also won the popular vote,” said attorney Michael Avenatti, who sued Trump on the adult performer’s behalf on Tuesday to unshackle her from a nondisclosure deal.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:53 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Dus Trump's hele idee, tarieven gebruiken als chantage bij NAFTA onderhandelingen, valt in het water? Terwijl hij een paar dagen geleden nog met dat dreigement kwam.

Intussen blijven de tarieven voor de EU gehandhaafd? Waarom is deze man zo'n amateur bij onderhandelingen.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 22:53 schreef PippenScottie het volgende:

[..]

Dit drijft enkel een wig in de Atlantische alliantie.
Rara wie hierbij gebaat is?

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 22:46 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Stormy Daniels attorney mocks Sarah Sanders claim Trump won in private arbitration

[..]

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 23:12 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Die private arbitration is ook wel weer zoiets raars... Cohen heeft klaarblijkelijk eenzijdig aan een voormalig rechter een order gevraagd in zijn/hun voordeel.

Hier nog een artikeltje: Trump lawyer Michael Cohen tries to silence adult-film star Stormy Daniels

quote:

Hope Hicks told the House Intelligence Committee last week that one of her email accounts was hacked, according to people who were present for the former White House communications director's testimony in the panel's Russia probe.

Under relatively routine questioning from Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., about her correspondence, Hicks indicated that she could no longer access two accounts: One she used as a member of President Donald Trump's campaign team and a personal account, according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the closed meeting of the Intelligence Committee was supposed to remain private.

Hicks, who portrayed herself as not savvy in matters of technology, told lawmakers that one of the accounts was hacked, according to two sources who were in the room. It is unclear if Hicks was referring to a campaign or personal account.

SPOILER

Her assertion of a hack raises the questions of who might have compromised her account, when, why and what information could have been obtained. But there was no indication from any of the sources that those questions were pursued by the committee, which had limited leverage over Hicks because she was appearing voluntarily and not under a subpoena for her testimony or records.

It is standard practice for lawmakers to ask witnesses about phone numbers and email accounts. But it is uncommon, according to people familiar with the committee process, for a witness to tell lawmakers that he or she no longer has access to past accounts.

Hicks' correspondence — and that of others who worked on the Trump campaign — has been a subject of interest for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is running a probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, as well as possible obstruction of justice by Trump associates. Mueller recently sent a subpoena to former Trump aide Sam Nunberg ordering Nunberg to turn over documents relating in any way to 10 current and former Trump associates, including Hicks.

Hicks is a key player in the Trump orbit, as one of his earliest campaign aides and until last week a senior White House official who sat just outside the Oval Office.

Former Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski is scheduled to appear before the committee on Thursday.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 23:35 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Hope Hicks told House Intelligence Committee she was hacked, sources say

[..]

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 23:46 schreef thesiren.nl het volgende:

[..]

Zou ze denken dat door het wachtwoord te veranderen de fbi er niet meer in komt?
Ik denk niet dat de russen dit zouden doen, misschien het witte huis zelf.
But her e-mails...
Kan natuurlijk ook een 15 jarig knulletje zijn die de naam van haar kat op facebook tegenkwam.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 23:52 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Het komt haar vast wel goed uit dat ze niet bij die emails kan

twitter:

AP twitterde op donderdag 08-03-2018 om 00:04:56 BREAKING: Police say two students have been shot in accidental shooting at Alabama high school, one with life-threatening injuries. reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 23:31 schreef Nintex het volgende:
Mooie quiz
https://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos/which-ex-trump-administration-official-are-you

Ik had Hope Hicks en Gorka.

quote:

The special counsel in the Russia investigation has learned of two conversations in recent months in which President Trump asked key witnesses about matters they discussed with investigators, according to three people familiar with the encounters.

In one episode, the president told an aide that the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, should issue a statement denying a New York Times article in January. The article said Mr. McGahn told investigators that the president once asked him to fire the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Mr. McGahn never released a statement and later had to remind the president that he had indeed asked Mr. McGahn to see that Mr. Mueller was dismissed, the people said.

In the other episode, Mr. Trump asked his former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, how his interview had gone with the special counsel’s investigators and whether they had been “nice,” according to two people familiar with the discussion.

The episodes demonstrate that even as the special counsel investigation appears to be intensifying, the president has ignored his lawyers’ advice to avoid doing anything publicly or privately that could create the appearance of interfering with it.

The White House did not respond to several requests for comment. Mr. Priebus and Mr. McGahn declined to comment through their lawyer, William A. Burck.

SPOILER

Legal experts said Mr. Trump’s contact with the men most likely did not rise to the level of witnesses tampering. But witnesses and lawyers who learned about the conversations viewed them as potentially a problem and shared them with Mr. Mueller.

In investigating Russian election interference, Mr. Mueller is also examining whether the president tried to obstruct the inquiry. The former F.B.I. director James B. Comey said that Mr. Trump asked him for his loyalty and to end the investigation into his first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. After firing Mr. Comey, the president said privately that the dismissal had relieved “great pressure” on him. And Mr. Trump also told White House officials after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation that he needed someone running the Justice Department who would protect him.

The experts said the meetings with Mr. McGahn and Mr. Priebus would probably sharpen Mr. Mueller’s focus on the president’s interactions with other witnesses. The special counsel has questioned witnesses recently about their interactions with the president since the investigation began. The experts also said the episodes could serve as evidence for Mr. Mueller in an obstruction case.

“It makes it look like you’re cooking a story, and prosecutors are always looking out for it,” said Julie R. O’Sullivan, a law professor at Georgetown University and expert on white-collar criminal investigations.

She added, “It can get at the issue of consciousness of guilt in an obstruction case because if you didn’t do anything wrong, why are you doing that?”

Central figures in investigations are almost always advised by their own lawyers to keep from speaking with witnesses and prosecutors to prevent accusations of witness tampering. The president has not been questioned by Mr. Mueller; Mr. Trump’s lawyers are negotiating terms of a possible interview. Learning even basic details about what other witnesses told investigators could help the president shape his own answers.

Mr. Trump’s interactions with Mr. McGahn unfolded in the days after the Jan. 25 Times article, which said that Mr. McGahn threatened to quit last June after the president asked him to fire the special counsel. After the article was published, the White House staff secretary, Rob Porter, told Mr. McGahn that the president wanted him to release a statement saying that the story was not true, the people said.

Mr. Porter, who resigned last month amid a domestic abuse scandal, told Mr. McGahn the president had suggested he might “get rid of” Mr. McGahn if he chose not to challenge the article, the people briefed on the conversation said.

Mr. McGahn did not publicly deny the article, and the president later confronted him in the Oval Office in front of the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, according to the people.

The president said he had never ordered Mr. McGahn to fire the special counsel. Mr. McGahn replied that the president was wrong and that he had in fact asked Mr. McGahn in June to call the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, to tell him that the special counsel had a series of conflicts that disqualified him for overseeing the investigation and that he had to be dismissed. The president told Mr. McGahn that he did not remember the discussion that way.

Mr. Trump moved on, pointing out that Mr. McGahn had never told him that he was going to resign over the order to fire the special counsel. Mr. McGahn acknowledged that that was true but said that he had told senior White House officials at the time that he was going to quit.

It is not clear how the confrontation was resolved. Mr. McGahn has stayed on as White House counsel, one of the few senior administration officials who has been with the president since the campaign.

Mr. Priebus met with the president in the West Wing in December, according to the people with knowledge of their encounter. Allies of Mr. Priebus, who was fired by Mr. Trump in July, have cautioned him to keep his distance. But Mr. Priebus, who is seeking to build a law practice as a Washington power broker who can open doors for clients, has maintained contact and occasionally visited the White House to see Mr. Trump and his own replacement, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Trump brought up Mr. Priebus’s October interview with the special counsel’s office, the people said, and Mr. Priebus replied that the investigators were courteous and professional. He shared no specifics and did not say what he had told investigators, and the conversation moved on after a few minutes, those briefed on it said. Mr. Kelly was present for that conversation as well, and it was not clear whether he tried to stop the discussion.

It is not illegal for the subject of an investigation to learn what witnesses have told investigators. But that is usually done through lawyers for the people involved because their communications are often shielded from prosecutors because of attorney-client privilege. In organized crime and complex white-collar investigations, prosecutors often ask witnesses whether they have spoken to the person under investigation to determine whether they are coordinating their stories.

Mr. Priebus has had a long and complicated relationship with the president. He was one of the few who publicly defended Mr. Trump after the Times article about his attempt to fire Mr. Mueller, which cited the president’s view that Mr. Mueller had too many conflicts to be the special counsel.

“He expresses concerns with the conflicts, but I never heard the idea or the concept that this person needed to be fired,” Mr. Priebus said last month in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I never felt it was relayed to me that way, either. And I would know the difference between a level 10 situation as reported in that story and what was reality. And it just — to me, it wasn’t reality.”

quote:

President Donald Trump will reportedly dine Wednesday night with officials from the pro-Trump nonprofit America First Policies, just one week after a group representative told CNBC that it maintains "very clear lines and high walls" intended to keep its work separate from the White House.

The president's dinner companions are to include oil billionaire Harold Hamm, who recently joined the board of America First Policies, and Brian O. Walsh, the group's executive director. The setting will be the cream-colored Georgetown mansion of Boyden Gray, a former official in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. CNN first reported details of the dinner.

The dinner will take place less than a week after CNBC published an in-depth report on America First Policies, a secretive group built around a web of connections between the White House, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.

Founded by former Trump campaign staffers in early 2017, the group's stated purpose is to advance Trump's policies. But CNBC found that America First Policies is also conducting a large-scale polling operation that appears designed to benefit the president, a situation which raises a number of legal concerns, according to election law experts.

As a tax-exempt nonprofit group, America First Policies is permitted to keep its donors secret as long as it doesn't get too political, and it doesn't coordinate with candidates or campaigns.

Speaking to CNBC, Walsh, the executive director, denied that America First Policies coordinates its work with the White House or the Trump campaign. But campaign finance lawyers and polling experts told CNBC that the evidence of AFP's work suggests otherwise.

SPOILER

Following the publication of CNBC's report, the nonprofit watchdog group Common Cause filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice, both alleging that America First Policies had violated campaign finance laws that require groups to disclose any money they spend on elections or campaigns.

"There's ample reason to believe that President Trump and his outside groups are illegally coordinating their fundraising and other activities, including flagrant violations of the soft money rules," said Stephen Spaulding, a former FEC special counsel who is now with Common Cause.

"As the guest list for tonight's dinner makes clear, America First Policies' supposedly 'high walls and sharp lines' are an absurd defense," Spaulding said. "Any 'high walls' that exist between this group and the Trump campaign have gaping holes in them, which Trump is driving a truck through."

By attending a small, private dinner with key figures at American First Policies, "Trump is saying, in effect, that America First Policies has the White House's blessing," said Brendan Fischer, an election law expert at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center. "It also sends a signal to deep-pocketed financial interests that they can buy influence with the administration through secret donations to the White House's preferred dark money group."

The dinner also presents an opportunity for America First Policies "to make sure that its political spending is of maximum value to the president, which in turn means that donations to the group can buy maximum influence with the president," Fischer said.

In recent weeks, the ties between the nonprofit group and the White House appear to have deepened, with Vice President Mike Pence holding a series of events around the country sponsored by America First Policies. Pence was at one of these events in Kentucky on Wednesday afternoon, just hours before Trump's dinner.

Officials at America First Policies did not respond to multiple requests for comment from CNBC, and a White House spokesman did not reply to an inquiry from CNBC about the event.

The dinner party is also significant in that it represents a rare outing for the president to a private home in Washington. If Trump leaves the White House after dark, it's almost always to eat at the restaurant in his Trump International Hotel.

All of which leaves Campaign Legal Center's Fischer deeply concerned about the secrecy that America First Policies, as a nonprofit, is allowed to offer to potential donors.

"Are they taking money from foreign donors, or from lobbying groups that want something from the White House? We don't know!" Fischer exclaimed. "But if President Trump learns anything about America First Policies' funding sources over dinner tonight, I sure hope he lets the public know."

quote:

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has gathered evidence that a secret meeting in the Seychelles just before the inauguration of Donald Trump was an effort to establish a back channel between the incoming administration and the Kremlin — apparently contradicting statements made to lawmakers by one of its participants, according to people familiar with the matter.

In January 2017, Erik Prince, the founder of the private security company Blackwater, met with a Russian official close to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin and later described the meeting to congressional investigators as a chance encounter that was not a planned discussion of U.S.-Russia relations.

A witness cooperating with Mueller has told investigators the meeting was set up in advance so that a representative of the Trump transition could meet with an emissary from Moscow to discuss future relations between the countries, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

George Nader, a Lebanese American businessman who helped organize and attended the Seychelles meeting, has testified on the matter before a grand jury gathering evidence about discussions between the Trump transition team and emissaries of the Kremlin, as part of Mueller’s investigation into Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election.

Nader began cooperating with Mueller after he arrived at Dulles Airport in mid-January and was stopped, served with a subpoena and questioned by the FBI, these people said. He has met numerous times with investigators.

SPOILER

Last year, Prince told lawmakers — and the news media — that his Seychelles meeting with Kirill Dmitriev, the head of a Russian government-controlled wealth fund, was an unplanned, unimportant encounter that came about by chance because he happened to be at a luxury hotel in the Indian Ocean island nation with officials from the United Arab Emirates.

In his statements, Prince has specifically denied reporting by The Washington Post that said the Seychelles meeting, which took place about a week before Trump’s inauguration, was described by U.S., European and Arab officials as part of an effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and the incoming administration.

Prince told lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee that he did not plan to meet Dmitriev in the Seychelles but that once he was there discussing possible business deals with UAE officials, they unexpectedly suggested that he visit the hotel bar and meet Dmitriev.

“At the end, one of the entourage says, ‘Hey, by the way, there’s this Russian guy that we’ve dealt with in the past. He’s here also to see someone from the Emirati delegation. And you should meet him, he’d be an interesting guy for you to know, since you’re doing a lot in the oil and gas and mineral space,’ ” Prince told lawmakers.

The two men, he said, spoke for no more than 30 minutes, or about the time it took him to drink a beer.

“We chatted on topics ranging from oil and commodity prices to how much his country wished for resumption of normal trade relations with the USA,” Prince told lawmakers. “I remember telling him that if Franklin Roosevelt could work with Josef Stalin to defeat Nazi fascism, then certainly Donald Trump could work with Vladi­mir Putin to defeat Islamic fascism.”

Prince said he went to the Seychelles as a private businessman, not as an official or unofficial emissary of the Trump transition team. During the congressional interview, which became testy at times as Democratic lawmakers pressed him to be more specific in his answers, Prince repeatedly complained that he had reason to believe U.S. intelligence agencies were leaking information about his activities.

Asked to comment on assertions that new evidence appears to contradict Prince’s description of the Seychelles meeting, a spokesman for Prince referred to his previous statements to the committee and declined further comment.

A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment.

Prince has known Nader for years and once hired him to try to generate business from the Iraqi government in the years after the U.S. invasion of that country. That effort was not successful, according to Prince’s statements in a subsequent deposition.

Nader, according to current and former officials, was known to Trump transition and administration officials as someone with political connections in the Middle East who could help navigate the tricky diplomacy of the region.

Nader had also attended a December 2016 meeting in New York between senior Trump advisers and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, according to a person familiar with the matter.

While Mueller is probing the circumstances of the Seychelles meeting, he is also more broadly examining apparent efforts by the Trump transition team to create a back channel for secret talks between the new administration and the Kremlin. Mueller was appointed special counsel to investigate possible Russian interference in the 2016 election, whether any Americans assisted in such efforts, and any other matters that arise in the course of his probe.

Investigators now suspect that the Seychelles meeting may have been one of the first efforts to establish such a line of communications between the two governments, these people said. Nader’s account is considered key evidence — but not the only evidence — about what transpired in the Seychelles, according to people familiar with the matter.

Nader has long served as an adviser to the UAE leadership, and in that role he met more than once with Trump officials, including Stephen K. Bannon and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to people familiar with the matter. After the Seychelles meeting, Nader visited the White House several times, and met at least once there with Bannon and Kushner, these people said.

Nader could not be reached for comment, and his lawyer declined to comment.

Nader — and the Seychelles meeting — are also of interest to Mueller’s team as it examines whether any foreign money or assistance fueled the Trump campaign, and how Trump officials during the transition and early days of the administration communicated with foreign officials, particularly Russians.

Nader’s cooperation with the special counsel was first reported by the New York Times.

The UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, a Trump administration objective. Such a concession by Moscow would have been likely to require the easing of U.S. sanctions on Russia, which were imposed for Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in 2014, those officials said.

Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition. However, according to people familiar with the Seychelles meeting, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his discussion with the Russian official.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 02:11 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Nog een artikel over de Seychellen meeting

Mueller gathers evidence that 2017 Seychelles meeting was effort to establish back channel to Kremlin

[..]

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 02:14 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

[..]

Je bent sneller dan de pushberichten!

twitter:

SethAbramson twitterde op donderdag 08-03-2018 om 02:59:40 Tonight seems like the night to re-up this thread on Erik Prince from... three months ago. https://t.co/SfEjbtCizE reageer retweet

twitter:

SethAbramson twitterde op donderdag 08-03-2018 om 03:36:37 I hope you'll check out this Erik Prince thread from yesterday, as given tonight's news all this content (including the embedded threads) is fresh again. https://t.co/rEtRGQ9tIH reageer retweet

quote:

“I don’t have any clue who George Nader is,” admits Representative Mike Conaway. The House of Representatives has 435 members, many of them quite ill-informed, so it comes as no shock that a member would admit a total lack of familiarity with a man featured in two A1 stories in the New York Times.

George Nader is a Lebanese-American businessman who attended a suspicious 2016 meeting in the Seychelles with representatives of the Trump team, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates, and is currently cooperating with Robert Mueller. The meeting seemed likely to have been arranged in order to broker some arrangement where Russian sanctions would be lifted and Trump and/or members of his family would get some personal financial benefit. Possibly it had some innocent purpose. It’s the kind of thing a person trying to get to the bottom of the Russia story would definitely want to look into.

What makes Conaway’s lack of familiarity with the name “George Nader” especially troublesome is that Conaway is the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and putatively running the lower chamber’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

SPOILER

If you’re getting the idea that maybe Conaway and his party aren’t utterly determined to uncover foul play between Moscow and Trump Tower, your suspicions are warranted. Conaway recently declared the investigation to be nearing its completion. “All investigations have a natural conclusion,” he explained. “As soon as we have everybody interviewed, we’ll start working on the report, we’ll get the report finalized, and we’ll move forward. Every investigation ought to have a conclusion, including this one. So we’re coming towards the end of it.”

Investigations, you see, have a “natural” conclusion. It is out of his hands. And so while Conaway’s committee has not forced the witnesses to answer questions Democrats believe they should answer, or even learned the names of major figures in the underlying investigation, there’s no arguing with nature. Anyway, it’s not like they’re investigating something like Benghazi, which took place in 2012 and was still being investigated four years later in a fruitless attempt to establish that the Obama administration deliberately lied.

But while the investigation into Russian election interference is coming to an end, the investigation into the people who are still investigating it is just getting started. Devin Nunes, who recused himself from overseeing the Russia investigation after being caught sneaking to the White House to coordinate with the administration, has been running a counter-investigation trying to discredit the Department of Justice and the FBI. Nunes and his staff have leaked a continuous stream of pseudo scandals to right-wing news outlets, all of which have claimed to expose nefarious conduct by the Deep State against Trump, and then disintegrated upon inspection. Nunes is now touting a new “explosive” revelation:

The story, reported by right-wing message receptacle John Solomon, reveals that the Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer, who was told by Trump staffer George Papadopoulos that the Trump campaign had illicit dirt Hillary Clinton, once facilitated a donation to fight AIDS through the Clinton Foundation. Downer is a member of Australia’s conservative party, and exactly what his involvement in a charitable donation has to do with any of this is hard to say. Republicans are dutifully expressing suspicions that it means something. “The Clintons’ tentacles go everywhere,” states Representative Mark Meadows, in lieu of any coherent theory.

Meanwhile, Republican members Bob Goodlatte and Trey Gowdy are calling for the appointment of a special counsel to pursue various debunked Republican theories that the FBI has done something wrong in its investigation of Trump. “We think this is a very serious matter regarding conduct by the FBI and by some in the Department of Justice that calls for the appointment of a special counsel who will have subpoena and prosecutorial powers,” exclaims Goodlatte. The House Republicans are winding down their pretend efforts to find out what Russia did in 2016 and who helped them, and ramping up their efforts to smear law enforcement.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:09 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Is dat de Belgische revolutie rond 1830? Dat was toch in een paar weken bekeken? Vraag me af waarom de defensie uitgaven toen zo stegen

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 20:47 schreef Ulx het volgende:
De EU kan genoeg. Die Russen durven alleen maar tegen kleine landjes. Frankrijk en het VK hebben natuurlijk ook gewoon atoombommen. En Frankrijk heeft bijvoorbeeld de policy dat ze rustig zo'n ding als eerste gooien als het moet.
Verder staat FN natuurlijk gewoon over de grens. Kogels zijn er zo. Het is niet dat de wapens allemaal amerikaans zijn.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 23:31 schreef Nintex het volgende:
Mooie quiz
https://www.buzzfeed.com/(...)ion-official-are-you

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:15 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Vroeg me al af hoe ze dat onder NAFTA wilden doen...

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 09:04 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

You got: Michael Flynn

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 23:46 schreef thesiren.nl het volgende:

[..]

Zou ze denken dat door het wachtwoord te veranderen de fbi er niet meer in komt?
Ik denk niet dat de russen dit zouden doen, misschien het witte huis zelf.
But her e-mails...
Kan natuurlijk ook een 15 jarig knulletje zijn die de naam van haar kat op facebook tegenkwam.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 09:17 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Ik heb Spicey!

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 09:14 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Het probleem met heffingen voor Canada en Mexico is dat de hele Noord-Amerikaanse westkuststreek van onder tot boven en weer terug is vergeven van bedrijven en bedrijfjes die aan elkaar leveren en van elkaar afnemen, maximaal gebruikmakend van de voordelen van ieder land (Canada = hydropower, VS = know-how, Mexico = arbeidskrachten). Ga je daar ergens heffingen tussenstoppen, dan zakt de hele Noord-Zuid keten in elkaar.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 09:14 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Het probleem met heffingen voor Canada en Mexico is dat de hele Noord-Amerikaanse westkuststreek van onder tot boven en weer terug is vergeven van bedrijven en bedrijfjes die aan elkaar leveren en van elkaar afnemen, maximaal gebruikmakend van de voordelen van ieder land (Canada = hydropower, VS = know-how, Mexico = arbeidskrachten). Ga je daar ergens heffingen tussenstoppen, dan zakt de hele Noord-Zuid keten in elkaar.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 09:21 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Als je op grondstoffen heffingen gaat gooien en op de eindproducten niet gaat de fabricage daarvan gewoon naar het buitenland.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 09:22 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

[..]

en ben je die klanten eenmaal kwijt, dat krijg je ze nooit meer terug.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 09:26 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Dus moet Trump gewoon op alles 50% importheffing willen. Rhaah-Maga-Maga!

Why? Officials saying: “Don’t pay attention to the tweets”, maybe?

quote:

On Nov. 9, 2016, when we Europeans woke up to the news of Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States, most of us understood that it would have a significant impact on world politics. What we did not realize at the time was how much that event would alter the basic fabric of international relations.

Over the past 16 months, we have been through roughly three stages in dealing with the fact that our first ally, the United States of America, is ruled by such an unorthodox president. We began by betting on human wisdom and political realism: Soon enough, Donald Trump, the nationalist, populist candidate, would wise up and become President Trump. Maverick politicians tend to do this in democratic societies.

Then came the “adults in the room” stage. When it became clear that there was no wising up in the Oval Office, we were led to believe that fortunately, the celebrated checks and balances of the American system were functioning. The toxic Steve Bannon would soon be on his way out. Some experienced, reliable generals were taking over; their advice would prevail. How would official Washington have reacted if generals were appointed to key posts in a French or German government? Not warmly, one suspects. But these being no ordinary times, Europeans went along with the idea.

For those who still bought it, the “adults in the room” theory took a serious beating last month at the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of top dogs in foreign and defense policy. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis came, but surprisingly did not take the floor. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser, did speak but was very publicly chided a few hours later by a presidential tweet because he “forgot” to say that Russian interference had no impact on Mr. Trump’s election.

SPOILER

Senior European officials admit that however good their cooperation may be with counterparts in the Trump administration, the president’s unpredictability looms too large over decision-making. We have now entered the third stage of the great European disbelief. It could be called the “Angela Merkel was right” stage, in a nod to the German chancellor’s statement after the NATO and Group of 7 meetings last May that “we Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands.”

American officials keep trying to reassure their puzzled European interlocutors: “Don’t look at the tweets, look at what we do.” Repeated over and over, it is truly an extraordinary line. Think of representing your administration and telling foreigners every day: Ignore our president. But that’s a pipe dream. This president cannot be ignored because he is already profoundly transforming international relations, well beyond promoting unilateralism at the expense of multilateralism.

Will there be a trade war? Maybe not. Yet last week’s assault from the White House, like a bolt from the blue, is a taste, for Washington’s European and Canadian allies, of how low the trans-Atlantic relationship can go under President Trump. Western partners of the United States cannot expect to be treated any better than China. When Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on ABC on Sunday, “There is a lot of history that needs to be undone,” he was addressing trade relations. To Europeans, this has a deeper meaning. It is post-World War II history that is being undone — the very history that the United States built, the foundation of the Western alliance.

Mr. Trump earlier pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal as part of his “America First” doctrine. The TPP is now back, revived by its 11 remaining members — without America. A world where the United States led multilateral trade agreements is ending. But nations still engage in multilateral trade pacts, as the European Union has done with Japan and Mercosur, the South American trade bloc. The United States is just not part of them.

President Trump has also pulled his country out of the Paris accord on climate change. Signatory countries are finding ways to go around this defection by working with more cooperative partners — American cities, states, corporations — just as they’ve done with trade.

The president has allowed Vladimir V. Putin and Xi Jinping, the authoritarian leaders of Russia and China, to take center stage on the global scene. As Mr. Trump was being inaugurated in January 2017, President Xi was wasting no time stepping up, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to pose as the champion of multilateralism and free trade. President Putin had already started his forays into Ukraine and Syria when Mr. Trump was elected; the Russian foray into the democratic processes of Western countries, including the United States, would be exposed soon after. By stubbornly refusing to criticize Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump shortchanges his administration, confuses his allies and weakens the American response.

Mr. Trump is also threatening to overturn one of the biggest diplomatic achievements of recent years, the international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, which Europeans are frantically trying to save.

By unilaterally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the president has demonstrated his contempt for international law, reversed half a century of American commitments and, in doing so, badly damaged his country’s credibility in the region.

President Trump has promoted the image of the strongman in world governance. Dictators used to be ashamed. No more. In the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte can continue boasting about gunning down suspected drug dealers. In a phone call last year, circulated by the Philippine Foreign Ministry and reported by The New York Times, Mr. Trump congratulated Mr. Duterte for his “unbelievable job on the drug problem.”

President Trump has shown how little consideration he has for diplomacy: More than a year after he took office, senior positions are still vacant at the State Department. There are no American ambassadors to Germany, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey or the European Union — not to mention Mr. Trump’s indecently crude disparagement of African nations and Haiti. Diversity, once part of American soft power, has disappeared from images of administration officials. Photos of meetings at the Oval Office are crowded with white males, who also staffed the press briefings in Davos last January.

This list is incomplete. But it’s sufficient to justify skepticism at the mantra “Don’t pay attention to the tweets.”

Mr. Trump: In case you wondered, Europe is paying attention.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 21:00 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Wat revolutionair van Trump.

The Wall of Trump - Out now!

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 09:27 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

[..]

ook op zijn, vastgoed, hotels en Golfresorts?

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 10:02 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Ja. Nee. Kijk even. Eh. Nee. Ja. Build the Wall! MAGA! En Winning! Hij is, like, echt heel slim!

quote:

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign last year spent over a half-million dollars for Trump Tower offices ― a choice that put donors’ money into the president’s pocket, but provided workspace for at most a handful of staff.

According to a HuffPost analysis of Federal Election Commission filings, the monthly rent was more than what candidate Trump had been charging from June 2015 to March 2016, back when he was largely self-funding his campaign and when there were, on average, several dozen employees in the midtown Manhattan office.

And while it is unclear why Trump’s re-election campaign has rented so much room for so few people, its decision to do so has helped fill office space that appears to have become much more difficult to rent out since Trump won the presidency.

Neither the campaign nor the Trump Organization would say how many square feet the campaign is currently leasing or what it is paying per square foot. On the commercial market, however, the building has been forced to drop its prices dramatically.

SPOILER

Trump Tower had been charging $120 per square foot per year in 2016 – about 50 percent more than the going rate in midtown Manhattan. Today, the asking price is down to $80 a square foot, according to a New York City real estate broker, and there is plenty of space available, including the entire 14th floor where Trump had his campaign headquarters for the 2016 general election.

“He is really unpopular,” said the broker, who spoke on condition that his name not be used.

One Republican consultant close to the White House who is familiar with the office and its workload laughed when asked about the expense.

“There’s nobody there. It’s like two guys,” the consultant said on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering the leader of his party. “There is no campaign. There is no operation. It’s just a joke.”

According to those FEC filings, Trump’s campaign sent paychecks to a total of 21 people over the course of last year. Ten left at the end of January 2017. Two more received their last paycheck in mid-March. Only six collected a paycheck at the end of December, and one of those now has an auto-response email stating that she left the campaign this January.

No one on the campaign staff at year’s end responded to HuffPost emails. The campaign’s phone number provided an email address for media inquiries, but emails sent there were returned as undeliverable. A security guard in the Trump Tower lobby turned away a HuffPost reporter who tried to visit the campaign office on Tuesday. Eventually, a public relations business owner in Northern Virginia replied to a query that had been sent to newly named campaign manager Brad Parscale’s social media and data analytics firm in San Antonio, Texas.

“Brad is not currently available for interviews,” wrote Mark Serrano of ProActive Communications. “He is working with the campaign leadership team to develop plans to engage in the 2018 midterm elections, providing support and endorsements for candidates, and engaging Trump supporters in districts and states throughout the country to support and vote for GOP candidates.”

‘It’s What You Signed Up For’

Trump opened his re-election campaign account on the day of his inauguration last year, which enabled him to continue using donor money to rent space in his own building. No other presidential victor has kept his campaign alive in this fashion. Barack Obama did not start his re-election campaign until April 2011. George W. Bush did not start his until May of 2003.

Stuart Stevens, a GOP consultant who worked on the campaign of 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, said donors should not be shocked that Trump is spending their money this way. “This is the least surprising president in history. He’s exactly the same person he was in the campaign,” Stevens said. “It’s what you signed up for.”

Trump made a practice of spending donor money at properties that he owned from the time he locked up the GOP nomination in the spring of 2016. The rent on the Trump Tower offices nearly quintupled, from $35,458 to $169,758 a month by July 2016, even though the number of campaign staff remained about the same. Trump also spent hundreds of thousands of donated dollars at his hotels and golf clubs, where he hosted fundraisers for himself and the party.

That habit continued into the first year of his presidency. With control of the Republican National Committee’s purse strings, Trump started to personally profit from contributions to that group as well.

In 2017, the RNC spent $232,042 at Trump International Hotel in Washington, $3,000 at Trump’s golf club in Miami and $1,228 at Trump Café in Trump Tower. The RNC also took over the monthly $37,542 rent payment for the re-election campaign’s space at Trump Tower in mid-autumn, spending a total of $150,169 by the end of the year. In the same period, it began paying the salary for campaign staffer John Pence, nephew to Vice President Mike Pence, which amounted to $28,412 by year’s end.

The RNC did not respond to questions about why it took over the latter expenses. The move did coincide with the party’s decision to no longer pay the president’s legal expenses incurred as a result of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia (the timing was first noted by CNBC).

Trump Likes To Pay Trump

Trump’s campaign has been even more generous at his properties in 2017 than the RNC. It spent $473,371 for rent at Trump Tower before that cost was shifted to the party, although about $150,000 of that was likely for the month immediately after his election, when the campaign was occupying more space in the building. The campaign also spent $58,686 at Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, and $14,860 at his hotel in Las Vegas. In all, the Trump campaign spent $774,163 in donor money at Trump-branded businesses last year.

What exactly the campaign has done to work toward Trump’s re-election is less clear. It staged several rallies in states that the president had won in 2016, including one in Melbourne, Florida, not even a month after he took office. It continued to pay Parscale’s firm an average of $474,000 a month.

The GOP consultant who believes there are only a few campaign staffers working at the Trump Tower headquarters said that Parscale was named to his new job last week only because the president hoped to draw attention away from the news that son-in-law Jared Kushner had lost his top-secret security clearance.

“They knew the bad stuff was coming. It was a media spin play,” the consultant said, adding that Parscale would certainly be replaced by someone else following the midterm elections this fall. “He’s a great guy. But he doesn’t know anything about politics. He knows about digital marketing.”

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 10:02 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Ja. Nee. Kijk even. Eh. Nee. Ja. Build the Wall! MAGA! En Winning! Hij is, like, echt heel slim! En Benghazi. Crooked Hillary wil bijvoorbeeld alle banen naar Mexico sturen! SAD!

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 10:33 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Bijvoorbeeld met dit:

Trump Charges His Campaign Top Dollar To Rent A Basically Empty Trump Tower Office (HuffPo mediumread)
His tiny re-election effort spent more on its monthly rent there than his campaign paid for most of the 2016 run.

[..]

SPOILER

Trump Tower had been charging $120 per square foot per year in 2016 – about 50 percent more than the going rate in midtown Manhattan. Today, the asking price is down to $80 a square foot, according to a New York City real estate broker, and there is plenty of space available, including the entire 14th floor where Trump had his campaign headquarters for the 2016 general election.

“He is really unpopular,” said the broker, who spoke on condition that his name not be used.

One Republican consultant close to the White House who is familiar with the office and its workload laughed when asked about the expense.

“There’s nobody there. It’s like two guys,” the consultant said on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering the leader of his party. “There is no campaign. There is no operation. It’s just a joke.”

According to those FEC filings, Trump’s campaign sent paychecks to a total of 21 people over the course of last year. Ten left at the end of January 2017. Two more received their last paycheck in mid-March. Only six collected a paycheck at the end of December, and one of those now has an auto-response email stating that she left the campaign this January.

No one on the campaign staff at year’s end responded to HuffPost emails. The campaign’s phone number provided an email address for media inquiries, but emails sent there were returned as undeliverable. A security guard in the Trump Tower lobby turned away a HuffPost reporter who tried to visit the campaign office on Tuesday. Eventually, a public relations business owner in Northern Virginia replied to a query that had been sent to newly named campaign manager Brad Parscale’s social media and data analytics firm in San Antonio, Texas.

“Brad is not currently available for interviews,” wrote Mark Serrano of ProActive Communications. “He is working with the campaign leadership team to develop plans to engage in the 2018 midterm elections, providing support and endorsements for candidates, and engaging Trump supporters in districts and states throughout the country to support and vote for GOP candidates.”

‘It’s What You Signed Up For’

Trump opened his re-election campaign account on the day of his inauguration last year, which enabled him to continue using donor money to rent space in his own building. No other presidential victor has kept his campaign alive in this fashion. Barack Obama did not start his re-election campaign until April 2011. George W. Bush did not start his until May of 2003.

Stuart Stevens, a GOP consultant who worked on the campaign of 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, said donors should not be shocked that Trump is spending their money this way. “This is the least surprising president in history. He’s exactly the same person he was in the campaign,” Stevens said. “It’s what you signed up for.”

Trump made a practice of spending donor money at properties that he owned from the time he locked up the GOP nomination in the spring of 2016. The rent on the Trump Tower offices nearly quintupled, from $35,458 to $169,758 a month by July 2016, even though the number of campaign staff remained about the same. Trump also spent hundreds of thousands of donated dollars at his hotels and golf clubs, where he hosted fundraisers for himself and the party.

That habit continued into the first year of his presidency. With control of the Republican National Committee’s purse strings, Trump started to personally profit from contributions to that group as well.

In 2017, the RNC spent $232,042 at Trump International Hotel in Washington, $3,000 at Trump’s golf club in Miami and $1,228 at Trump Café in Trump Tower. The RNC also took over the monthly $37,542 rent payment for the re-election campaign’s space at Trump Tower in mid-autumn, spending a total of $150,169 by the end of the year. In the same period, it began paying the salary for campaign staffer John Pence, nephew to Vice President Mike Pence, which amounted to $28,412 by year’s end.

The RNC did not respond to questions about why it took over the latter expenses. The move did coincide with the party’s decision to no longer pay the president’s legal expenses incurred as a result of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia (the timing was first noted by CNBC).

Trump Likes To Pay Trump

Trump’s campaign has been even more generous at his properties in 2017 than the RNC. It spent $473,371 for rent at Trump Tower before that cost was shifted to the party, although about $150,000 of that was likely for the month immediately after his election, when the campaign was occupying more space in the building. The campaign also spent $58,686 at Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, and $14,860 at his hotel in Las Vegas. In all, the Trump campaign spent $774,163 in donor money at Trump-branded businesses last year.

What exactly the campaign has done to work toward Trump’s re-election is less clear. It staged several rallies in states that the president had won in 2016, including one in Melbourne, Florida, not even a month after he took office. It continued to pay Parscale’s firm an average of $474,000 a month.

The GOP consultant who believes there are only a few campaign staffers working at the Trump Tower headquarters said that Parscale was named to his new job last week only because the president hoped to draw attention away from the news that son-in-law Jared Kushner had lost his top-secret security clearance.

“They knew the bad stuff was coming. It was a media spin play,” the consultant said, adding that Parscale would certainly be replaced by someone else following the midterm elections this fall. “He’s a great guy. But he doesn’t know anything about politics. He knows about digital marketing.”

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 11:37 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Dat gaat Iran niet tof vinden. En het maakt SA echt de hoofdprijs voor jihadi's.

quote:

Op woensdag 7 maart 2018 23:12 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Die private arbitration is ook wel weer zoiets raars... Cohen heeft klaarblijkelijk eenzijdig aan een voormalig rechter een order gevraagd in zijn/hun voordeel.

Hier nog een artikeltje: Trump lawyer Michael Cohen tries to silence adult-film star Stormy Daniels

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 10:37 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

[..]

Da's niet slim, daar hebben ze een ander woord voor: Flessentrekkerij!

quote:

The head of the United States Forest Service stepped down Wednesday amid an investigation into sexual harassment accusations against him, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department said.

The resignation of the agency’s chief, Tony Tooke, comes days after “PBS NewsHour” reported that the Agriculture Department was investigating sexual misconduct complaints against him, including that Mr. Tooke had relationships with subordinates before his appointment to the top role.

According to the department’s spokesman, Mr. Tooke said in an email to his employees that he had been cooperating with the investigation but wanted to “make way for a new leader.”

SPOILER

“I have been forthright during the review, but I cannot combat every inaccuracy that is reported in the news media,” Mr. Tooke wrote. “What I can control, however, are decisions I make today and the choice of a path for the future that is best for our employees.”

The Agriculture Department investigation was announced immediately after reports of a broad culture of harassment and retaliation at the Forest Service. According to “NewsHour,” interviews with 34 women who have worked for the service revealed widespread misconduct, including several reports of rape.

The nature of the accusations against Mr. Tooke were not clear on Wednesday night.

“In my experience, in order to effectively lead any organization, you must have the moral authority to inspire its members to work toward the goal of continuous improvement,” Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, said in a statement. “Chief Tooke has determined that it is best for the Forest Service, its future and its employees that he step aside.”

Mr. Perdue appointed Mr. Tooke over the summer; he had been at the agency for several decades. Mr. Tooke wrote in the email to Forest Service staff that his retirement would be effective immediately, the department spokesman said.

The Forest Service, a part of the Agriculture Department, is responsible for managing 154 national forests and 20 grasslands in the United States.

quote:

The Trump administration is “basically going to war” against California, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown warned Wednesday, citing Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to sue his state over its policies aimed at shielding undocumented immigrants from a federal crackdown.

“It’s not wise, it’s not right and it will not stand,” Brown said in a press conference.

The Trump administration sued California late Tuesday over three laws meant to protect undocumented immigrants. But on Wednesday, the fight was in the court of public opinion, with Sessions and California Democrats holding dueling events casting one another as the villain in the country’s contentious battle over immigration policy in the Trump era.

In a speech in California announcing the administration’s suit, Sessions described the state’s Democrats as “lawless open borders radicals,” accused them of sheltering criminals from immigration authorities and likened their limitations on cooperating with federal immigration authorities to the Confederacy’s effort to secede from the Union in order to protect the institution of slavery.

SPOILER

“I understand that we have a wide variety of political opinions out there on immigration. But the law is in the books and its purposes are clear and just,” Sessions said. “There is no secession ... I would invite any doubters to go to Gettysburg, to the tombstones of John C. Calhoun and Abraham Lincoln.”

The Trump administration’s lawsuit seeks to block three California laws: One that prohibits business owners from voluntarily letting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers enter their property without a judicial warrant; a second measure that requires state inspections of immigrant detention facilities; and a third that bars local law enforcement officers from helping transfer people to ICE or telling the agency when they will release people from custody.

The Democrat-dominated California Assembly passed all three laws last year amid White House efforts to boost deportations. California is home to the nation’s largest population of undocumented immigrants.

Sessions characterized the challenged laws in stark terms, claiming that they effectively neutered ICE agents’ ability to safely detain criminals. But although the laws limit some of the ways employers and police can work with ICE, they don’t ban immigration agents from entering jails or workplaces, and include exceptions for immigrants convicted of serious crimes.

“There are three lies,” Brown said of Sessions’ comments. “Open borders, lie one. Protect criminals, lie two. California wants to secede, lie three. Not true.”

Brown took personal jabs at Sessions, calling his press conference in California a “political stunt” and describing the attorney general as “a fellow coming from Alabama talking to us about secession and protecting human and civil rights.” He called the Trump administration “full of liars” and said the Department of Justice special counsel investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia was “closing in.”

“Maybe [Sessions is] trying to keep his job because the president’s not too happy with him,” Brown said, a reference to Trump’s public hostility against his own attorney general. “I do think this is pure red meat for the base and I would assume ― but this is pure speculation ― that Jeff thinks that Donald will be happier with him and I’m sure Donald will be tweeting his joy at this particular performance.”

The escalating tensions mark the latest spat in a long-running feud between the Trump administration and California Democrats over the White House’s aggressive immigration tactics. Following the playbook of Texas Republicans during the Obama administration, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) has sued the Trump administration several times in federal court, seeking to block or delay construction of a proposed wall on the Mexican border and the rollback of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children from deportation.

“We are in the business of public safety, not deportations,” Becerra said Wednesday, alongside Brown.

Despite the political contention over California’s policies, most ICE arrests there continue to take place in jails or prisons, according to a declaration submitted to federal court alongside the DOJ’s complaint by the agency’s acting director, Thomas Homan. Last year, 17 percent of ICE’s 34,606 arrests in California were carried out “at large.”

At large arrests, however, have spiked in recent months, accounting for nearly 30 percent of ICE’s 8,588 apprehensions in California since the 2018 fiscal year began on Oct. 1, according to Homan.

Homan vowed to ramp up ICE efforts in California last year, following passage of one of the laws the Trump administration is now seeking to block in part. He has also called for public officials to be criminally prosecuted if they back so-called “sanctuary” policies that restrict police cooperation with ICE. Most recently, he criticized Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf for warning the public about reports of upcoming ICE arrests in the area.

Sessions took a jab at the mayor in his remarks, too, accusing her of “actively seeking to help illegal aliens.”

Sessions’ lawsuit argues that the three laws passed by California last year violate the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which dictates that the federal government sets immigration policy. The lawsuit also argues that the limitations on sharing information about suspected undocumented immigrants in local jails violates a provision of federal law requiring local authorities to provide ICE with information about the citizenship of the people in their custody.

But some legal analysts pointed out that the laws are narrowly tailored and loaded with exceptions that may fortify them against legal challenges.

“These California laws were very carefully written,” said Sarah Pierce, an analyst with the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. “When you look at the details, the laws build in some important exemptions to prepare for a case like this, where the federal government is claiming that they’re preempting federal law.”

The Trump administration probably would have challenged the laws even if it didn’t expect to win in court, immigration attorney David Leopold argued.

“This is just another brazen use of the courts for political gain,” Leopold said. “The Republicans and Trump have a pattern and practice of politicizing the courts and this is just one more example of that.”

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 12:17 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown: "Trump Administration Is ‘Going To War’ With California"

Attorney General Jeff Sessions: "California’s immigration policies liken to an attempt to secede."

Ja, wat is het nou? (HuffPo mediumread)

[..]

SPOILER

“I understand that we have a wide variety of political opinions out there on immigration. But the law is in the books and its purposes are clear and just,” Sessions said. “There is no secession ... I would invite any doubters to go to Gettysburg, to the tombstones of John C. Calhoun and Abraham Lincoln.”

The Trump administration’s lawsuit seeks to block three California laws: One that prohibits business owners from voluntarily letting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers enter their property without a judicial warrant; a second measure that requires state inspections of immigrant detention facilities; and a third that bars local law enforcement officers from helping transfer people to ICE or telling the agency when they will release people from custody.

The Democrat-dominated California Assembly passed all three laws last year amid White House efforts to boost deportations. California is home to the nation’s largest population of undocumented immigrants.

Sessions characterized the challenged laws in stark terms, claiming that they effectively neutered ICE agents’ ability to safely detain criminals. But although the laws limit some of the ways employers and police can work with ICE, they don’t ban immigration agents from entering jails or workplaces, and include exceptions for immigrants convicted of serious crimes.

“There are three lies,” Brown said of Sessions’ comments. “Open borders, lie one. Protect criminals, lie two. California wants to secede, lie three. Not true.”

Brown took personal jabs at Sessions, calling his press conference in California a “political stunt” and describing the attorney general as “a fellow coming from Alabama talking to us about secession and protecting human and civil rights.” He called the Trump administration “full of liars” and said the Department of Justice special counsel investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia was “closing in.”

“Maybe [Sessions is] trying to keep his job because the president’s not too happy with him,” Brown said, a reference to Trump’s public hostility against his own attorney general. “I do think this is pure red meat for the base and I would assume ― but this is pure speculation ― that Jeff thinks that Donald will be happier with him and I’m sure Donald will be tweeting his joy at this particular performance.”

The escalating tensions mark the latest spat in a long-running feud between the Trump administration and California Democrats over the White House’s aggressive immigration tactics. Following the playbook of Texas Republicans during the Obama administration, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) has sued the Trump administration several times in federal court, seeking to block or delay construction of a proposed wall on the Mexican border and the rollback of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children from deportation.

“We are in the business of public safety, not deportations,” Becerra said Wednesday, alongside Brown.

Despite the political contention over California’s policies, most ICE arrests there continue to take place in jails or prisons, according to a declaration submitted to federal court alongside the DOJ’s complaint by the agency’s acting director, Thomas Homan. Last year, 17 percent of ICE’s 34,606 arrests in California were carried out “at large.”

At large arrests, however, have spiked in recent months, accounting for nearly 30 percent of ICE’s 8,588 apprehensions in California since the 2018 fiscal year began on Oct. 1, according to Homan.

Homan vowed to ramp up ICE efforts in California last year, following passage of one of the laws the Trump administration is now seeking to block in part. He has also called for public officials to be criminally prosecuted if they back so-called “sanctuary” policies that restrict police cooperation with ICE. Most recently, he criticized Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf for warning the public about reports of upcoming ICE arrests in the area.

Sessions took a jab at the mayor in his remarks, too, accusing her of “actively seeking to help illegal aliens.”

Sessions’ lawsuit argues that the three laws passed by California last year violate the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which dictates that the federal government sets immigration policy. The lawsuit also argues that the limitations on sharing information about suspected undocumented immigrants in local jails violates a provision of federal law requiring local authorities to provide ICE with information about the citizenship of the people in their custody.

But some legal analysts pointed out that the laws are narrowly tailored and loaded with exceptions that may fortify them against legal challenges.

“These California laws were very carefully written,” said Sarah Pierce, an analyst with the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. “When you look at the details, the laws build in some important exemptions to prepare for a case like this, where the federal government is claiming that they’re preempting federal law.”

The Trump administration probably would have challenged the laws even if it didn’t expect to win in court, immigration attorney David Leopold argued.

“This is just another brazen use of the courts for political gain,” Leopold said. “The Republicans and Trump have a pattern and practice of politicizing the courts and this is just one more example of that.”

Calexit! (NB. Ondans alle ellende die California momenteel ondervindt, is de staat een netto-betaler.)

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 13:15 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
o.a. bosbranden: http://www.calfire.ca.gov/general/firemaps

[ afbeelding ]

Is nu even wat minder, maar niet al te lang geleden leek het wel of de halve staat in de fik stond.

https://www.vox.com/2017/(...)nia-largest-wildfire
https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)wildfires/index.html
etc etc etc

quote:

Pennsylvania holds a special congressional election next Tuesday, and Republicans aren't sure their candidate, Rick Saccone, can win the conservative district President Trump took by 20 percentage points. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence both came up to campaign with Saccone, but internal polling shows him barely trailing Democrat Conor Lamb, a 33-year-old former prosecutor and Marine veteran who has spent his nearly $4 million war chest on professional ads and a 16-person full-time campaign team, Politico reports. Saccone has four full-time staffers and is a lackluster fundraiser; the national party has pumped millions into the race to rescue him.

"Candidate quality matters, and when one candidate outraises the other 5-to-1, that creates real challenges for outside groups trying to win a race," says Corry Bliss, who runs the main super PAC tied to House Republicans. As of Tuesday, Republican groups had spent nearly $7.5 million on TV ads alone, Politico says, but that infusion — "much of it highlighting the GOP tax cuts and attempting to tie Lamb to [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi — has failed to move the needle." White House counselor Kellyanne Conway is scheduled to campaign with Saccone on Thursday and Trump has another rally planned with him on Saturday.

As the election nears, "the national GOP is increasingly pinning the blame on Saccone," but "with so much attention trained on the race, House GOP leaders determined they had little choice but to spend whatever is needed to pull Saccone over the finish line," Politico says. "A loss would be wholly embarrassing, many Republicans privately acknowledge, given that it would take place in a state that Trump made a cornerstone of his 2016 victory. And the themes that the GOP has highlighted in the special election ... are the centerpieces of the party’s 2018 campaign plan."

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 14:04 schreef Szura het volgende:
Ik was Bannon met die quiz, schuld van de Big Mac natuurlijk...

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 14:04 schreef Szura het volgende:
Ik was Bannon met die quiz, schuld van de Big Mac natuurlijk...

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 14:00 schreef Tchock het volgende:
Dag of vijf offline geweest, wat je mist in zo'n korte periode is echt absurd. En dan is het nog geen vrijdag geweest.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 14:04 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:
Republicans are starting to panic about next week's Pennsylvania congressional election


[..]

http://theweek.com/speedr(...)ngressional-election

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 14:56 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

[..]

Dat kan nog een slachtveld worden daar.

twitter:

onzetaal twitterde op vrijdag 21-02-2014 om 08:56:18 #taaltip Verwar 'slagveld' niet met 'slachtveld'. https://t.co/4mhwXefk7a reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 14:56 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

[..]

Dat kan nog een slachtveld worden daar.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 15:03 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

[..]

Immer relevante tweet:

twitter:

onzetaal twitterde op vrijdag 21-02-2014 om 08:56:18 #taaltip Verwar 'slagveld' niet met 'slachtveld'. https://t.co/4mhwXefk7a reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 14:13 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

Ik was ook Bannon, ondanks de friet

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 14:04 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:
Republicans are starting to panic about next week's Pennsylvania congressional election


[..]

http://theweek.com/speedr(...)ngressional-election

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 15:18 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Ik moet zeggen dat "the national GOP is increasingly pinning the blame on Saccone," ook wel een beetje klinkt als indekken bij een mogelijk verlies. De trend over de gehele linie bij special elections is toch wel een forse winst voor de Democraten de uitslag in percentages betrof, hoewel in veel van die special elections de marge dusdanig was dat de Republikeinen de zetel behielden. Ze zullen in de midterms dit jaar waarschijnlijk per district / staat heel goed moeten gaan balanceren tussen het distantiëren van Trump en hem omarmen afhankelijk van het heersende sentiment.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 15:28 schreef Szura het volgende:
@kwelkernbc
A White House official tells me and @HallieJackson the details of any new tariff announcement are still being finalized. If a proclamation is signed it will be largely "symbolic."

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 15:33 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Wat wil dit zeggen? Geen tariffs meer? De hele manier waarop Trump dit aanpakt is zo ongelofelijk chaotisch.

twitter:

JYSexton twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 01:32:30 The Trump staffers I’ve talked to have exhausted all American opportunities and are starting to look abroad. One told me he thought about leaving his Trump work off his resume but “the stink doesn’t come off.” https://t.co/bR4Kz7gq4m reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 15:42 schreef speknek het volgende:

twitter:

JYSexton twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 01:32:30 The Trump staffers I’ve talked to have exhausted all American opportunities and are starting to look abroad. One told me he thought about leaving his Trump work off his resume but “the stink doesn’t come off.” https://t.co/bR4Kz7gq4m reageer retweet

Thoughts and prayers voor de medewerkers van de Trump administratie.

"Can you explain this gap in employment here?"
"I was in prison"
"Really? I thought you worked for the Trump administration."
"Nope, prison."

twitter:

MattGertz twitterde op vrijdag 02-03-2018 om 03:28:46 Uh... this Daily Mail fluff piece on "Hope Hicks' $10m payday" buried the lede - she kept a WH diary. That is definitely getting subpoenaed... https://t.co/wM6Ctb0nQ7 https://t.co/uEtKfRVAdh reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 15:33 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Dat niemand in het WH eigenlijk een idee heeft waar ze mee bezig zijn

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 15:52 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Alles wijst er toch ook gewoon op dat de sancties een 'temper tantrum' van Trump waren in plaats van een doordachte strategie van mensen in het Witte Huis die niet incompetent zijn?

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 14:00 schreef Tchock het volgende:
Dag of vijf offline geweest, wat je mist in zo'n korte periode is echt absurd. En dan is het nog geen vrijdag geweest.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 15:58 schreef BlackLining het volgende:

[..]

Same. Ben al de hele dag aan het bijlezen maar ik volg er bar weinig meer van

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 15:11 schreef Szura het volgende:
Haha blijkbaar is die egocentrische zak nu ook boos op Sanders. Misschien kan ie zelf eens wat briefings afhandelen, hij kan het vast beter

@DavidWright_CNN
From @Acosta: A source close to White House says Trump is upset with @PressSec Sarah Sanders over her handling of Stormy Daniels questions yesterday. “POTUS is very unhappy,” the source said. “Sarah gave the Stormy Daniels storyline steroids yesterday,” the source added.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 15:14 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:
Even serieus: als Saccone verliest zijn de Republikeinen echt in deep shit. Dat betekent dat bakken geld niet voldoende zijn en hun midterm message (tax cuts, anti Pelosi, pro Trump) niet aanslaat in een district dat Trump met 18 procent won.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 16:14 schreef Trumpinator het volgende:

[..]

Van CNN? Met een korrel zout nemen.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 16:17 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

[..]

Ah Szura, is dit nu je trolletje met zijn account van 30 dagen?

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 16:18 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Jep

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 16:17 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

[..]

Ah Szura, is dit nu je trolletje met zijn account van 30 dagen?

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 15:14 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:
Even serieus: als Saccone verliest zijn de Republikeinen echt in deep shit. Dat betekent dat bakken geld niet voldoende zijn en hun midterm message (tax cuts, anti Pelosi, pro Trump) niet aanslaat in een district dat Trump met 18 procent won.

twitter:

NatashaBertrand twitterde op donderdag 08-03-2018 om 14:23:49 Per @DavidCornDC and @Isikoff's new book, the Las Vegas nightclub Trump went to with Emin Agalarov in June 2013—a few months before he visited Moscow—was known for some...salacious...acts https://t.co/HiCBuIm2lX https://t.co/6Cm77qvVcT reageer retweet

SPOILER

twitter:

SethAbramson twitterde op donderdag 08-03-2018 om 16:03:23 1/ To @DavidCornDC and @Isikoff: you guys are doing great work. But you're going to have to explain why the Trump Org claims the Trump-Agalarov Trump Tower Moscow deal was "killed" by Ivanka in February '14, while the Agalarovs say it died in February '17. https://t.co/j7nYnBZhIl reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 16:26 schreef Mike het volgende:

[..]

Op veel plaatsen gebruiken de Republikeinen de tax cuts nog amper in campagne-uitingen omdat het amper een issue is onder de kiezers. De spotjes die op dit moment overal in de VS gebruikt worden zijn vooral gericht op immigratie en veiligheid.

quote:

For the first time, political appointee and federal financial disclosure information is publicly searchable.

When the Trump administration took office early last year, hundreds of staffers from lobbying firms, conservative think tanks and Trump campaign groups began pouring into the very agencies they once lobbied or whose work they once opposed.

Today we’re making available, for the first time, an authoritative searchable database of 2,475 political appointees, including Trump’s Cabinet, staffers in the White House and senior officials within the government, along with their federal lobbying and financial records. Trump Town is the result of a year spent filing hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests; collecting and organizing staffing lists; and compiling, sifting through and publishing thousands of financial disclosure reports.

SPOILER

Here’s what we found: At least 187 Trump political appointees have been federal lobbyists, and despite President Trump’s campaign pledge to “drain the swamp,” many are now overseeing the industries they once lobbied on behalf of. We’ve also discovered ethics waivers that allow Trump staffers to work on subjects in which they have financial conflicts of interest. In addition, at least 254 appointees affiliated with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and at least 125 staffers from prominent conservative think tanks are now working in the federal government, many of whom are on teams to repeal Obama-era regulations.

Drilling down even further, at least 35 Trump political appointees worked for or consulted with groups affiliated with the the billionaire libertarian brothers Charles and David Koch, who also have a network of advocacy groups, nonprofits, private companies and political action committees. At least 25 Trump appointees came from the influential Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank founded in 1973, and at least two came from Heritage Action, its related political nonprofit. Heritage says the Trump administration, in just its first year, has enacted nearly two-thirds of its 334 policy recommendations.

We also found — for the first time — dozens of special-government employees, or SGEs, who work as paid consultants or experts for federal agencies while keeping their day jobs in the private sector. This rare government gig allows them to legally work for both industry and the Trump administration at the same time. Under the Obama administration, Huma Abedin, the longtime aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, benefited from this policy while simultaneously working at the State Department, the Clinton Foundation and a corporate consulting firm, drawing scrutiny from the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Government Accountability Office.

Roughly 60 percent of the Trump administration officials included in our analysis have financial disclosure reports. We have requested these reports for the rest. Since our last update of financial disclosure records in August, we have added 660 such reports from across the government.

We also did a more limited version of this project in 2009, at the start of the Obama administration. As part of this year’s analysis, we compared the number of appointees in the first year of both the Obama and Trump administrations who had been active lobbyists in the two years prior to their nomination for Senate-confirmed government jobs. Even though the Trump administration has lagged significantly behind previous administrations in appointing people for such positions, more Trump appointees were recent lobbyists than Obama appointees: Trump had 18 in his first year, while Obama had 14.

“Focusing on novel scandals alone can distract from the enormous scale of the Trump administration’s embrace of revolving-door hiring,” said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project at the nonpartisan Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The pipelines between conservative policy think tanks — namely the Heritage Foundation and the Koch Brothers’ Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce — and the Trump administration are clear, as is their effect on federal policy.

Just before Trump took office last January, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, one of the main conservative advocacy groups funded by the Koch Brothers, unveiled a deregulatory wish list. The action plan highlighted 19 Obama-era policies affecting the environment, labor and technology that Freedom Partners wanted gone. “This strategy can help to unravel eight years of regulatory overreach starting immediately,” the organization’s vice president, Andy Koenig, wrote in an accompanying press release.

A few weeks later, Koenig joined the White House as a policy assistant, putting him in a position to implement his former employer’s agenda. Sure enough, just over a year later, the administration has acted on 16 of the 19 suggestions that Freedom Partners listed.

The moratorium on federal coal leases? Lifted. The Paris climate agreement? Withdrawn. The Clean Power Plan? Repealed. The FCC’s net neutrality policy, the EPA’s Waters of the United States rule, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s arbitration rules? All reversed.

Freedom Partners and the White House didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The Trump campaign had a small staff and was light on policy chops, so it leaned heavily on personnel from the Koch network and the Heritage Foundation during the transition. “When you have a president committed to strong deregulatory policy, there’s no better place to figure out what regulations put a stranglehold on the economy than to go to the Koch network and the Heritage Foundation,” said Marc Lampkin, the co-chair of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck’s lobbying practice and a former aide to House Speaker John Boehner. “It makes perfect sense that they would be part of the intellectual breeding ground for the administration.”

The Heritage Foundation has touted its influence over Trump’s agenda. On Jan. 23, the organization said the Trump administration embraced two-thirds of the 334 policy recommendations in its “Mandate for Leadership,” such as shrinking national monuments in Utah, preventing taxpayer funding for international groups involved in abortion (known as the Mexico City Policy), raising military spending, and withdrawing from UNESCO.

Heritage cited the efforts of about 70 of its former employees working throughout the transition and administration. Our analysis found 28 officials who used to work at the Heritage Foundation and its advocacy arm, Heritage Action.

Not all political appointments are announced. In digging through lists of special-government employees, we found several in key positions in the Trump administration, including Wendy Teramoto, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s chief of staff and a longtime aide at his private equity firm; James D. Ray, a George W. Bush-era staffer who worked as an unpaid consultant at the Department of Transportation while keeping his job as a principal in KPMG’s infrastructure consulting practice; and Leonard Wolfson, who was lobbying on behalf of the Mortgage Bankers Association on Capitol Hill one week before getting paid $64 per hour as an expert at the Department of Housing and Urban Development the next week.

Wolfson’s case is a prime example of the inherent business conflicts in such arrangements: Wolfson is a well-known housing lobbyist among House Republicans and served in the Bush administration at HUD from 2005 to 2008. Senate records show Wolfson was actively lobbying on banking legislation and regulatory issues in April and May.

By mid-May, Wolfson had taken a relatively rare position as an outside “expert” at HUD while he was still employed at the 2,200-member lobbying group. To take the HUD gig, Wolfson took an unpaid leave from the Mortgage Bankers Association. He didn’t fully resign from the group until July 31.

At HUD, Wolfson worked on getting nominees for senior positions at the agency through the backlogged and slow Senate confirmation process, according to HUD officials.

Reached for comment, a HUD spokesman denied there was any conflict. “There was absolutely no overlap,” said Brian Sullivan. “He took one hat off and put another one on.”

His paid government consulting work this past summer was not previously disclosed. And in December, Wolfson himself was appointed and confirmed as HUD’s assistant secretary for congressional and intergovernmental relations.

We’re releasing Trump Town as a resource for journalists, researchers and the public. Its goal: to increase understanding of who the current administration’s taxpayer-funded decision-makers are and how their work histories and financial holdings might influence public policy.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 16:49 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
What We Found in Trump’s Drained Swamp: Hundreds of Ex-Lobbyists and D.C. Insiders

[..]

quote:

It was late in the afternoon of Nov. 9, 2013, in Moscow, and Donald Trump was getting anxious.

This was his second day in the Russian capital, and the brash businessman and reality TV star was running through a whirlwind schedule to promote that evening’s extravaganza at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall: the Miss Universe pageant, in which women from 86 countries would be judged before a worldwide television audience estimated at 1 billion.

Trump had purchased the pageant 17 years earlier, partnering with NBC. It was one of his most-prized properties, bringing in millions of dollars a year in revenue and, perhaps as important, burnishing his image as an international playboy celebrity. While in the Russian capital, Trump was also scouting for new and grand business opportunities, having spent decades trying — but failing — to develop high-end projects in Moscow. Miss Universe staffers considered it an open secret that Trump’s true agenda in Moscow was not the show but his desire to do business there.

Yet to those around him that afternoon, Trump seemed gripped by one question: Where was Vladimir Putin?

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 16:14 schreef Trumpinator het volgende:

[..]

Van CNN? Met een korrel zout nemen.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 16:14 schreef Trumpinator het volgende:

[..]

Van CNN? Met een korrel zout nemen.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 16:14 schreef Trumpinator het volgende:

[..]

Van CNN? Met een korrel zout nemen.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 19:19 schreef Montov het volgende:

[..]

Welkom in dit topic. Je bent nieuw hier, gezien de "Fake News" verdediging. Ik herinner me vorig jaar nog toen dat nog een geloofwaardige ontkenning leek. Na zoveel bevestigingen van verhalen over de incompetentie en het schandalige handelen van Trump zijn die ontkenningen niet meer zo populair. Persoonlijk vind ik naïviteit een goede eigenschap zolang het richting je eigen handelen is omdat het het goede in jezelf naar boven brengt. Door een sterke identificatie met Trump kan ik mij voorstellen dat sommige mensen naief richting Trump willen blijven vanuit dezelfde gedachte, dus wie ben ik om daar kritiek op te leveren? Ik hoop dat je het een tijdje vol kan houden, want veel van je politieke vrienden is dat niet gelukt.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 19:52 schreef Trumpinator het volgende:

[..]

Dank voor je "welkomstwoord". "Zoveel bevestigingen van verhalen over iincompetentie en schandalig handelen"? Ik kijk veel FOX News. FOX News is in de VS het meest populaire nieuws kanaal. In de top 10 laatste ratings staat er maar 1 programma van een andere omroep en dat is Rachel Maddow's show bij MSNBC. Wat ik van de zogenaamde MSM oppik is voornamelijk echokamer gedrag waar de een het handelen van de president nog schandaliger vindt dan de andere. Daar trap ik niet in. Lijkt ook heel veel op dit topic van het FOK forum. Trump is erg, neehee Trump is veel erger, neehee, Trump is verschrikkelijk, neehee, Trump is een verschirkkelijke onmenselijke, incompetente schandalige president. Gelet op het feit dat de MSM in de VS, die gewoon lakeien van de DNC zijn, de afgelopen meer dan 18 maanden nogal vaak met fake news kwam neem ik die MSM met een flinke korrel zout. Als men bij FOX News de president laat vallen wordt het een ander verhaal. Dan pas moet ik mij zorgen gaan maken.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 19:44 schreef Tchock het volgende:

[..]

Een vandaag geregistreerd account dat Trumpinator heet en meteen CNN aanvalt.

Zucht. Dit wordt weer vermoeiend.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 19:55 schreef Trumpinator het volgende:

[..]

CNN begon al met fake news toen in de Golfoorlog 1 twee journalisten net deden of ze in Saoedi Arabie waren

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 19:52 schreef Trumpinator het volgende:

[..]

Ik kijk veel FOX News.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 19:54 schreef Tchock het volgende:

[..]

Hoe je in één post kunt beweren de MSM niet te vertrouwen maar het grootste, populairste, best bekeken netwerk wel is me al een raadsel.

Daarnaast kijken we hier niet zo naar welk kanaal iets zegt, maar wát er gezegd wordt en met welk bewijs. Als een kanaal niet bewezen leugenachtig en onwaar is - die zijn er overigens van linkse en rechtse signatuur en alles er tussen - moet je serieus bekijken wat er gemeld wordt. En overigens moet je ál het nieuws kritisch bekijken, niet slechts dat van CNN of een andere zender.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 20:01 schreef Trumpinator het volgende:

[..]

In de onderhavig tweet stond niks van bewijs. Alleen een source. Dat is geen bewijs, maar hooguit hearsay. Er was eind vorig jaar nog een source bij CNN die stellig beweerde dat Tillerson in januari zou opstappen.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 19:17 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Miss Universe In Moscow: How Trump’s Beauty Contest Spawned A Business Deal With Russians And A Bond With Putin (Ultralongread YahooNews / HuffPo)

[ afbeelding ]
Teaser:

[..]

(De rest past never nooit niet in 1 Fok!-replywindow, dus deze keer zullen jullie voor één keer het vertrouwde stekje moeten verlaten. Kom op, jullie kunnen het!)

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 19:17 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Miss Universe In Moscow: How Trump’s Beauty Contest Spawned A Business Deal With Russians And A Bond With Putin (Ultralongread YahooNews / HuffPo)

[ afbeelding ]
Teaser:

[..]

(De rest past never nooit niet in 1 Fok!-replywindow, dus deze keer zullen jullie voor één keer het vertrouwde stekje moeten verlaten. Kom op, jullie kunnen het!)

quote:

King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands were in town, and Putin was obligated to meet them at the Kremlin. But the royal couple had gotten stuck in traffic and was late, making it impossible for the Russian president to find time for Trump.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 20:11 schreef AnneX het volgende:
Halverwege heb ik het bijna misselijk opgegeven.
Meer van hetzelfde..

twitter:

ReutersWorld twitterde op donderdag 08-03-2018 om 19:21:37 JUST IN: 11 nations sign Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal without the United States https://t.co/oHpRjEbH3R reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 20:19 schreef Wombcat het volgende:
Haha, Trump getrolled door onze koning

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 20:37 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Pacific Partnership trade deal without the United States https://t.co/oHpRjEbH3R

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 20:41 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Tja, de wereld bereid zich langzaamaan voor op een leven zonder de onbetrouwbaarste bondgenoot. "Het was even doorbijten, maar wát een rust!"

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 07-03-2018 om 16:10:48 China has been asked to develop a plan for the year of a One Billion Dollar reduction in their massive Trade Deficit with the United States. Our relationship with China has been a very good one, and we look forward to seeing what ideas they come back with. We must act soon! reageer retweet

quote:

The Trump administration is asking Beijing for a plan to cut the annual U.S. trade deficit with China by $100 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that Washington had asked Beijing for a $1 billion reduction—less than 0.3% of the countries’ annual trade gap or around one day’s worth of the trade imbalance. His tweet was off by $99 billion.

twitter:

TheViewFromLL2 twitterde op donderdag 08-03-2018 om 01:08:40 Something I'd love to see a reporter ask Trump Org about:1) Cohen formed EC LLC on Oct 17 20162) The contract provided for EC LLC to pay Stormy $130K by Oct 27 20163) Between Oct 17 & Oct 25, the Trump campaign made payments to Trump Org properties that add up to $129,999.72. https://t.co/CMAxgl3Vn4 reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 21:05 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Goh, ook toevallig!

twitter:

TheViewFromLL2 twitterde op donderdag 08-03-2018 om 01:08:40 Something I'd love to see a reporter ask Trump Org about:1) Cohen formed EC LLC on Oct 17 20162) The contract provided for EC LLC to pay Stormy $130K by Oct 27 20163) Between Oct 17 & Oct 25, the Trump campaign made payments to Trump Org properties that add up to $129,999.72. https://t.co/CMAxgl3Vn4 reageer retweet

1) Cohen formed EC LLC on Oct 17 2016
2) The contract provided for EC LLC to pay Stormy $130K by Oct 27 2016
3) Between Oct 17 & Oct 25, the Trump campaign made payments to Trump Org properties that add up to $129,999.72.

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 21:05 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Goh, ook toevallig!

twitter:

TheViewFromLL2 twitterde op donderdag 08-03-2018 om 01:08:40 Something I'd love to see a reporter ask Trump Org about:1) Cohen formed EC LLC on Oct 17 20162) The contract provided for EC LLC to pay Stormy $130K by Oct 27 20163) Between Oct 17 & Oct 25, the Trump campaign made payments to Trump Org properties that add up to $129,999.72. https://t.co/CMAxgl3Vn4 reageer retweet

1) Cohen formed EC LLC on Oct 17 2016
2) The contract provided for EC LLC to pay Stormy $130K by Oct 27 2016
3) Between Oct 17 & Oct 25, the Trump campaign made payments to Trump Org properties that add up to $129,999.72.

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 21:50 schreef AnneX het volgende:
Waar zou Pence zijn met zijn gedachten, terwijl Trump leutert en goochelt met de billions. $$$

quote:

Erik Prince, the founder of private security company Blackwater, is set to host a fundraiser for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) at his Virginia home later this month.

CNN reported Thursday that Reps. Tom Garrett Jr. (R-Va.) and Dave Brat (R-Va.) are also expected to attend the fundraiser, as is retired Lt. Colonel Oliver North, a former National Security Council staffer during the Reagan administration who played a role in the Iran-Contra affair. Tickets for the event start at $1,000, and donors giving $2,700 will be invited to VIP event.

Prince and Rohrabacher have been friends for decades. The Blackwater founder worked as an intern for the California Republican in 1990. Rohrabacher also defended Prince when Blackwater, today known as Academi, came under fire after a group of its employees opened fire on Iraqi civilians in 2007, killing 17 and injuring 20.

But the fundraiser comes as Prince, whose sister is Education Secretary Betsey DeVos, faces new questions about a January 2017 meeting in Seychelles with a Russian official.

[..]

quote:

[..]

Schiff said he would like to call Prince and other witness back before the committee for another round of questioning. Whether that will happen is unclear, as Democrats are in the minority and the committee's probe has been mired in partisan sniping.

Later on Thursday, Schiff said he and the other Democrats on the committee have asked the GOP majority to subpoena former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to compel him to answer questions from the panel.

[..]

quote:

President Trump defied opposition from his own party and protests from overseas on Thursday as he signed an order imposing stiff and sweeping new tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. But he sought to soften the impact on America’s closest allies with a more flexible plan than originally envisioned.

After a week of furious lobbying and a burst of last-minute internal debates and confusion, Mr. Trump agreed to exempt, for now, Canada and Mexico and held out the possibility of later excluding allies such as Australia. But the order, which would go into effect in 15 days, could hit South Korea, China, Japan, Germany, Turkey and Brazil and foreign leaders warned of a trade war that could escalate to other industries and be aimed at American goods.

“The actions we are taking today are not a matter of choice, they are a matter of necessity for our security,” Mr. Trump said in a ceremony at the White House where he officially authorized the tariffs.

The president said the measures were taken to address “a growing crisis in our steel and aluminum production that threatens the security of our nation and also is bad for us economically and with jobs.”

SPOILER

The orders represented Mr. Trump’s most expansive use of federal power to rewrite the rules of global trade since he took office and upended the prevailing consensus on free markets that has largely governed Washington under administrations of both parties for decades. A longtime critic of globalization, Mr. Trump argued that the United States has been ravaged by unfair trading partners, particularly in fading sectors like steel and aluminum.

The orders will raise levies on foreign steel by 25 percent and on imported aluminum by 10 percent. Business groups have warned that the impact could be felt across the supply chain as consumers face higher prices for automobiles, appliances and other consumer goods. But Mr. Trump’s aides dismissed such predictions as overwrought and said most Americans will hardly notice any impact.

“We’re going to be very flexible,” Mr. Trump said as he hosted a morning cabinet meeting several hours before an event to sign the order. “At the same time, we have some friends and some enemies where we have been tremendously taken advantage of over the years.”

Mr. Trump said that his tariff order would be tailored to exclude some countries and would give him the authority to raise or lower levies on a country-by-country basis and add or take countries off the list as he deems fit.

“We’ve been treated so badly over the years by other countries,” Mr. Trump said during the ceremony.

Canada and Mexico would be exempt pending discussions with both countries about changes that would address Mr. Trump’s concerns about steel and aluminum and no time limit was imposed on the exclusion. But administration officials said they expect to deal with those two countries in short order. Mr. Trump tied the exclusions to renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which remains bogged down in inconclusive talks, but aides said national security concerns would be important in deciding whether to make the exclusion permanent.

Mr. Trump indicated that the tariffs would go into effect on Canada and Mexico “if we don’t make the deal on Nafta and if we terminate Nafta because they are unable to make a deal that’s fair.”

Mr. Trump singled out Australia as an example of another country that could be excluded, citing the trade surplus that the United States maintains with Australia, which imports more from America than it exports to the country.

The president’s comments came after a frenzied and uncertain morning in which administration officials tried to resolve debates and complications that threatened to hold up an order he has been trumpeting for a week.

More than 100 Republican lawmakers sent a letter to Mr. Trump on Wednesday imploring him to drop plans for sweeping tariffs, which would upend years of free-trade orthodoxy among party leaders in Washington and potentially prompt retaliation and a wider trade war with other countries. Their letter came a day after Mr. Trump’s chief economic adviser, Gary D. Cohn, announced his resignation after his failure to forestall the president from pursuing tariffs.

“We urge you to reconsider the idea of broad tariffs to avoid unintended negative consequences,” the Republican lawmakers said in their letter.

Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican who represents the Midwestern industrial state of Wisconsin, which was key to Mr. Trump’s Electoral College victory in 2016, said a broad tariff plan would be self-destructive.

“If it’s targeted toward China, depending on how it’s tailored, I may not have a problem with it, because that’s where the root cause of the problem is, the gross oversupply within China,” Mr. Johnson said on CNN on Thursday. “But a generalized tariff that would actually harm allies, harm American consumers, by the way, harm American workers that use steel in production, hurting their competitive nature in global markets as well, I’m opposed to that.”

There was some bipartisan concurrence on the idea of focusing any tariff plan on China rather than more broadly. “President Trump has identified the right opponent — China — much better than both the Obama and Bush administrations did,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, said on the floor.

“But I would say to you, Mr. President, don’t swing blindly and wildly at our foe, China,” he added. “Establish a well-placed jab at China. Set them back. Let them know we mean business. President Trump ought to rethink his plan so it actually achieves what he says he wants it to achieve.”

Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, said on Thursday that a plan to impose broad tariffs that hit allies was “dangerous” and could undermine national security.

“If you put tariffs against your allies,” Mr. Draghi said at a news conference in Frankfurt, “one wonders who the enemies are.”

Mr. Trump has brushed off the opposition, arguing that American industries are being treated unfairly by foreign competitors and need help to protect jobs. He told reporters last week that he planned to impose tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on foreign aluminum.

“As a candidate, as the president, he’s been incredibly consistent in looking at all of this through the lens of a worker,” Kellyanne Conway, his counselor, told Fox News on Thursday. “He believes this country has been on the losing side of trade deals for decades,” she added. “He wants fair, reciprocal trade deals that stop screwing the American worker and American industries.”

She argued that the Republican lawmakers did not object entirely to tariffs but instead wanted to ensure that they are tailored “so that we can continue to sell American made goods around the world and be able to hire more American workers. The president agrees with that.”

At the cabinet meeting, Mr. Trump thanked Mr. Cohn for his service, but needled him about his decision to leave. “He may be a globalist, but I still like him,” the president said as Mr. Cohn sat in a chair along the wall and smiled. “He’s seriously a globalist. There’s no question. You know what? In his own way he’s a nationalist, because he loves his country.”

Mr. Trump then suggested that Mr. Cohn might eventually return to the administration. “I have a feeling you’ll be back,” the president told him. In a teasing voice, he added: “I don’t know if I can put him in the same position though. He’s not quite as strong on those tariffs as we want.”

quote:

Op dinsdag 6 maart 2018 19:59 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Er zijn vandaag ook weer special elections! Helaas minder spannend dan de vorige keer... althans, 1 D zetel met weer een D zonder tegenstander en 1 R zetel waarbij het wel erg onwaarschijnlijk is dat deze flipt.

Oklahoma House of Representatives District 51
Oorzaak: Scott Biggs (R) heeft zijn ontslag ingediend omdat hij een niet nader gespecificeerde baan bij de federale overheid heeft gekregen/genomen
2016 verkiezing deze zetel: R 77.95% - 22.05 D %
2014 verkiezing deze zetel: R won, geen D kandidaat
2016 presidentiële verkiezing: Trump 80.44% - 15.47% Clinton
2012 presidentiële verkiezing: Romney 78.45% - 21.55% Obama
Kandidaten: Brad Boles (R), Charles Murdock (D).

Massachusetts State Senate Third Essex District
Oorzaak: Thomas McGee (D) heeft zijn ontslag ingediend omdat hij burgemeester is geworden.
Kandidaten: Brendan Crighton (D).

twitter:

jdawsey1 twitterde op donderdag 08-03-2018 om 23:14:32 "Pool just learned that Trump stuck his head into the briefing room a few minutes ago and told reporters in the vicinity that South Korea would be making a 'major announcement' at 1900 this evening." reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 23:19 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Hier overigens nog de uitslagen:
- 100% D voor de uncontested seat, zeg ik, zonder het verder opgezocht te hebben

Oklahoma House of Representatives District 51
Brad Boles (R) - 1501 stemmen - 72.13%
Charles L. Murdock (D) - 580 stemmen - 27.87%

Vergeleken met de presidentsverkiezingen in dit district van 2016: +21 D
Vergeleken met de presidentsverkiezingen in dit district van 2012: +12 D

Geen verrassingen dus, maar wederom een behoorlijke shift naar D, hoewel dat praktisch geen andere kant op kon (ws iig deels regression to the mean).

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 23:29 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Thanks voor de update.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 23:37 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Yw. Ik weet nooit zo goed of mensen geïnteresseerd hierin zijn. Zelf ben ik een redelijke stats-nerd dus vind het wel interessant... zeker tov polls, aangezien dit ongemodeleerde realiteit is. Aan de andere kant weet ik niet hoeveel dit nou zegt tov de mid-terms, waar de opkomst aanzienlijk hoger zal liggen en de kans op upsets daardoor ws lager...

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 23:42 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Ik vind het zeker boeiend om mee te krijgen. Dailykos heeft een overzicht ergens op Google drive staan met alle special election results sinds november 2016, ook interessant om te zien.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:09 schreef Nintex het volgende:
North Korea is fixed.

Trump brengt wereldvrede

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:09 schreef Nintex het volgende:
North Korea is fixed.

Trump brengt wereldvrede

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:11 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Kushner op Middle East peace stelt alleen nog wat teleur.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:12 schreef thesiren.nl het volgende:

[..]

Zelfs als Jesus terugkomt gaat hij daar mensen teleurstellen vrees ik.

twitter:

NewsAlertHQ twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 00:08:15 #BREAKING NEWS: The South Korean delegation hand delivered a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the White House for President Trump, according to a foreign diplomatic source. "Major announcement" on North Korea coming at 7p ET from White House briefing room. - CNN reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:09 schreef Nintex het volgende:
North Korea is fixed.

Trump brengt wereldvrede

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:17 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:18 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

De Zuid Koreaanse delegatie gaat een statement maken in het Witte Huis en de Trump heeft een persoonlijke brief van Kim Jong Un gehad.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:18 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

De Zuid Koreaanse delegatie gaat een statement maken in het Witte Huis en de Trump heeft een persoonlijke brief van Kim Jong Un gehad.

twitter:

RawStory twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 00:18:48 ‘Hopefully you will give me credit’: Trump vies for praise ahead of ‘major’ North Korea statement https://t.co/fBgauwUsNA reageer retweet

twitter:

KariLakeFox10 twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 00:20:42 FOXNews reporting an announcement expected from the White House soon that President Trump will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to discuss denuclearization of the rogue nation. #Breaking reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:21 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

KariLakeFox10 twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 00:20:42 FOXNews reporting an announcement expected from the White House soon that President Trump will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to discuss denuclearization of the rogue nation. #Breaking reageer retweet

BOOM

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:30 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Hoeveelste keer is dit nu dat Noord-Korea wil praten?

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:31 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

De 1e sinds de Clinton administratie

Kim Jong Un heeft nog nooit met een Amerikaanse president gesproken.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:35 schreef Szura het volgende:
Nog weer eens wat anders, na een tafel voor Carson van 31.000 dollar nu een deur voor Zinke die nog ruim vier zo duur is

http://www.businessinside(...)n-office-door-2018-3

Drain the swamp!

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:38 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

140.000 USD voor een deur?!

quote:

Woman named in Stormy Daniels' ‘hush agreement’ is another porn star accusing Trump of sexual assault

A mystery woman listed in Stormy Daniels' non-disclosure agreement is a fellow porn star who publically accused Donald Trump of sexual assault during the campaign, her attorney said Thursday.

Jessica Drake, who accused Trump of forcibly touching and kissing her over a decade ago, is referred to as "Angel Ryan" in a hush agreement that Stormy Daniels signed in exchange for $130,000 from Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen. Ryan was listed in the agreement along with three other people who knew of Trump's extramarital affair with Daniels.

But Ryan is in fact Drake, her lawyer, Gloria Allred, confirmed to the Daily News.

Allred declined to comment on Drake's relationship to Daniels and why she knew of her affair with Trump.

Representatives for Daniels did not respond to emailed questions.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, filed a lawsuit against Trump on Tuesday, alleging that her "hush agreement" should be invalidated because, while she and Cohen signed it, Trump never did.

If successful, Daniels would be free to tell the world about her tryst with the President.

SPOILER

Daniels has been dominating national headlines since it was revealed that she had a year-long sexual relationship with Trump that started just a few weeks after First Lady Melania gave birth to their son, Barron.

Daniels alleges that she and Trump first met during a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2006.

In a stunning turn of events, that's the same golf tournament that Drake claims Trump sexually assaulted her at.

Drake, who's also an X-rated actresss, came forward with allegations against Trump after a damning hot mic recording surfaced of him bragging about being able to "grab" women "by the p---y" because he's a "star."

Drake alleged that Trump invited her to his hotel room during the Lake Tahoe event. She went with two other women because she said she didn't feel comfortable going alone.

"He grabbed each of us tightly, in a hug and kissed each one of us without asking permission," Drake said during a press conference in Manhattan on Oct. 22, 2016.

Cohen, Trump's personal attorney, admitted last month that he paid Daniels $130,000 a few days before the 2016 election, but refused to say what the payment was for and whether he was reimbursed by Trump or his campaign.

The attorney was spotted at Mar-a-Lago last weekend, as Trump was also there heading a series of Republican fundraisers. Trump and Cohen could have violated campaign-finance laws if the President in any way coordinated, or knew of, the payment to Daniels.

Trump, who's accused of sexual misconduct by nearly two dozen women, has yet to personally address Daniels' affair claims. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered the first White House confirmation that a hush agreement exists between Trump and Daniels when she told reporters Wednesday that a ruling had been made about it "in the President's favor."

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:35 schreef Szura het volgende:
Nog weer eens wat anders, na een tafel voor Carson van 31.000 dollar nu een deur voor Zinke die nog ruim vier zo duur is

http://www.businessinside(...)n-office-door-2018-3

Drain the swamp!

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 01:03 schreef Puddington het volgende:
Voor de mensen die het interessant vinden, dit was de showreel die is getoond tijdens de vergadering over games met Trump:

Violence in Video Games

Wat een waardeloos Let's Play-kanaal.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 01:07 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ik vind het niet eens bizar dat mensen denken dat dit wel eens tot afstomping en daarna tot geweld zou kunnen leiden, maar de cognitieve dissonantie die nodig is eerst naar dit te kijken en daarna pas naar supermakkelijk in een psychose wapens kunnen kopen en bovendien daarna [as naar geweld in films & series, die nogsteeds veel prevalenter zijn, kijken, snap ik niet.

twitter:

ReutersWorld twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 01:14:07 BREAKING: U.S. President Donald Trump said he will meet with North Korea's Kim by May, according to South Korean National Security Adviser Chung Eui-Yong https://t.co/mknDmbOSEw reageer retweet

twitter:

FoxNews twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 01:13:24 SoKo security adviser Chung Eui-Yong: "I explained to @POTUS that his leadership and his maximum pressure policy together with international solidarity brought us to this juncture." https://t.co/eWe8em59zD reageer retweet

twitter:

RepublicanStudy twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 00:16:05 Results from a recent poll of RSC members on #tariffs. reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 01:12 schreef Puddington het volgende:

[..]

Zie mijn bericht van eerder deze dag: Trump houdt vergadering over geweld in games

Er zijn studies die wijzen dat games met verhoogde agressie gecorreleerd zijn, maar daar valt enorm veel aan af te dingen. Zo zijn er heel veel verschillende vormen van geweld in video games - neem als voorbeeld Doom en Skyrim - waar geweld allebei een rol speelt maar een daarvan als écht gewelddadig wordt gezien, en studies maken daar geen onderscheid tussen. Het is een risicofactor waarschijnlijk, maar eentje die minimale invloed heeft, net zoals films, tv en boeken dat hebben. Voorlopig is er teveel tegenstrijdig bewijs om te concluderen dat er een correlatie, laat staan een causatie, bestaat tussen games en verhoogde agressie.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 01:15 schreef Houtenbeen het volgende:

twitter:

ReutersWorld twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 01:14:07 BREAKING: U.S. President Donald Trump said he will meet with North Korea's Kim by May, according to South Korean National Security Adviser Chung Eui-Yong https://t.co/mknDmbOSEw reageer retweet

twitter:

FoxNews twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 01:13:24 SoKo security adviser Chung Eui-Yong: "I explained to @POTUS that his leadership and his maximum pressure policy together with international solidarity brought us to this juncture." https://t.co/eWe8em59zD reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 01:18 schreef Nintex het volgende:


TRUMP flikt het

Haters be damned

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 01:19 schreef OMG het volgende:
Flikt wat?

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 01:20 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Ga je nog erkennen dat je weer eens bullshit hebt gepost?

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 01:23 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Fox News zegt net. Trump is de first head of state waar Kim Jong Un ooit een ontmoeting mee heeft gehad. Normaal verloopt het via diplomaten e.d.

twitter:

FoxNews twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 01:13:24 SoKo security adviser Chung Eui-Yong: "I explained to @POTUS that his leadership and his maximum pressure policy together with international solidarity brought us to this juncture." https://t.co/eWe8em59zD reageer retweet

twitter:

erichartmane twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 01:45:48 Erin Burnett on CNN: If Trump solves the North Korea problem he "would be going down as a great president, and there's no getting around that." https://t.co/cATtTfaFFh reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 01:24 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Dat was niet wat je zei

quote:

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson played down hopes for a breakthrough on North Korea’s nuclear program, saying the U.S. is a “long way” from negotiations after the country’s leader offered to give up his weapons in exchange for security guarantees.

“We’re a long way from negotiations, we just need to be very clear-eyed and realistic about it,” Tillerson said Thursday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in his first comments since South Korean envoys met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and reported his willingness to accede to U.S. demands. The secretary called the signals coming from Pyongyang “potentially positive.”

Tillerson’s comments echo those of senior administration officials, who’ve expressed skepticism in the days since Kim promised to freeze weapons tests as discussions continue. A South Korean delegation is set to be in Washington later Thursday to brief officials on their discussions with North Korean leaders.

Tillerson has frequently repeated his desire to get into a room with North Korean officials to determine their seriousness about credible negotiations over dismantling the state’s nuclear program. That has occasionally caused tension with the White House, as when he was forced to walk back an offer to meet North Korean leaders “without preconditions” -- something past administrations have resisted.

Speaking alongside Ethiopian Foreign Minister Workneh Gebeyehu, Tillerson again said he wanted “some kind of talks about talks” with North Korea.

“I don’t know yet until we are able to meet ourselves face-to-face with representatives of North Korea whether the conditions are right to even begin thinking about negotiations,” Tillerson said.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has also tried to diminish expectations. Moon, who agreed to meet Kim for a summit next month at the border village of Panmunjom, said Wednesday “we can’t be optimistic just yet” about progress with North Korea.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 02:03 schreef Szura het volgende:
Mag wel hopen dat de VS de beste en meest voorbereide diplomaten meestuurt naar die gehaaide Noord-Koreanen als dat gesprek daadwerkelijk doorgaat, want met een grote militaire parade, de grootste rode loper ooit en een paar bolletjes ijs fungeert Trump in no-time in Kim’s grote propagandashow. Was overigens ook een waarschuwing die Pence uitte voorafgaand aan de Winterspelen.

Alleen al áls een Amerikaanse president gaat, is dat een mega-overwinning voor Kim en het toonbeeld dat z’n wapenverzameling heeft gewerkt. Toezeggingen, we moeten überhaupt maar zien wat daar ooit van terechtkomt. Voorheen helemaal niks.

quote:

A senior adviser at the Department of Housing and Urban Development spread a false conspiracy theory that claimed Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign chairman took part in a Satanic ritual, a CNN KFile review of his tweets show.

John Gibbs is a former conservative commentator who initially joined the HUD as the director for Strong Cities and Strong Communities, a program aimed at spurring economic development at the local level.

In August of 2017, Gibbs, a political appointee, transitioned to the role of senior adviser, working in the office of the assistant secretary for community planning and development. In his current role, Gibbs is tasked with developing and implementing efforts aimed at increasing economic development programs for low-income people.

On Twitter, Gibbs made multiple references to a conspiracy theory started by far-right bloggers claiming Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta took part in a Satanic ritual. Tweets from Gibbs, archived on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, show him promoting the conspiracy four times between October 31 and November 5 of 2016, using the hashtag #SpiritCooking. The hashtag originated from an email of Podesta's released by WikiLeaks, which members of the far-right claimed, without evidence, that Podesta was involved in a Satanic ritual that involved bodily fluids.

The claim has repeatedly been debunked.

SPOILER

A spokesman for the department declined to comment, saying the agency doesn't weigh in on comments not made as a public official. Gibbs did not return a request for comment.

Gibbs' Twitter page is now set to private, which means the general public can't see his full history of tweets. Tweets archived on the Wayback Machine only offer a small window into his Twitter activity.

When radio host Wayne Dupree, who is known for spreading a conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax, tweeted that Clinton was losing black voters' support because her campaign manager took part in "Satanic #SpiritCooking," Gibbs quote tweeted him, writing, "True, true, and true. #Trump #SpiritCooking #BlackLivesMatter."

In another tweet, Gibbs targeted artist Marina Abramovic, whom bloggers claimed was part of the conspiracy, writing, "Marina Abramovic, woman at the center of #SpiritCooking scandal, has a Twitter handle that ends in 666. You can't make this stuff up."

In tweets from early 2016, Gibbs also blasted "cucks," a derogatory term used by the alt-right to insult establishment conservatives, and derided the Democratic Party for accepting Islam.

When far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was facing backlash for comments he made endorsing sex between young boys and older men, Gibbs called the comment "indefensible," but added the controversy might "tame his ego a bit, and helps focus his outrageousness on leftists & cucks, not the good guys."

In another tweet from October 2016, Gibbs also defended Ricky Vaughn, an alt-right figure who often tweeted anti-Semitic sentiments, when Twitter banned Vaughn, an anonymous user, from the platform.

"#Twitter down big today because they banned Ricky? #FreeRicky," he wrote.

In a February 2016 tweet, Gibbs said the Democratic Party had become the party of "Islam, gender-bending, anti-police" and the party of people who accuse others of racism

quote:

Former President Barack Obama is in advanced negotiations with Netflix to produce a series of high-profile shows that will provide him a global platform after his departure from the White House, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Under terms of a proposed deal, which is not yet final, Netflix would pay Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, for exclusive content that would be available only on the streaming service, which has nearly 118 million subscribers around the world. The number of episodes and the formats for the shows have not been decided.

Mr. Obama does not intend to use his Netflix shows to directly respond to President Trump or conservative critics, according to people familiar with discussions about the programming. They said the Obamas had talked about producing shows that highlight inspirational stories.

But the Netflix deal, while not a direct answer to Fox News or Breitbart.com, would give Mr. Obama an unfiltered method of communication with the public similar to the audiences he already reaches through social media, with 101 million Twitter followers and 55 million people who have liked his Facebook page.

“President and Mrs. Obama have always believed in the power of storytelling to inspire,” Eric Schultz, a senior adviser to the former president, said Thursday. “Throughout their lives, they have lifted up stories of people whose efforts to make a difference are quietly changing the world for the better. As they consider their future personal plans, they continue to explore new ways to help others tell and share their stories.”

SPOILER

In one possible show idea, Mr. Obama could moderate conversations on topics that dominated his presidency — health care, voting rights, immigration, foreign policy, climate change — and that have continued to divide a polarized American electorate during President Trump’s time in office.

Another program could feature Mrs. Obama on topics, like nutrition, that she championed in the White House. The former president and first lady could also lend their brand — and their endorsement — to documentaries or fictional programming on Netflix that align with their beliefs and values.

It is unclear how much money the Obamas will be paid, given their lack of experience in the media business. Netflix recently signed a five-year, $300 million deal to lure Ryan Murphy away from 21st Century Fox, but Mr. Murphy is among the television industry’s most sought-after producers

The deal is evidence that Mr. Obama, who left the White House when he was just 55 years old, intends to remain engaged in the nation’s civic business, even as he has studiously avoided direct clashes with Mr. Trump about his concerted efforts to roll back Mr. Obama’s legacy. It is also a clear indication that the former president remains interested in the intersection of politics, technology and media.

Several people familiar with the Netflix discussions said that executives from Apple and Amazon, which have their own streaming services, have also expressed interest in talking with Mr. Obama about content deals.

The former president has maintained a low profile since leaving office. He and his wife are each writing highly anticipated memoirs, for which they were reportedly paid more than $60 million. And Mr. Obama has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for speeches in the United States and around the world. The Obamas are rarely seen in public in Washington, where they still live.

Mr. Obama has long expressed concerns about how the flow of information — and misinformation — has the power to shape public opinion. In the last several months, Mr. Obama has discussed with technology executives and wealthy investors the threats to American democracy from the manipulation of news.

He has seethed privately and publicly, about what he says is the manipulation of news by conservative outlets and the fractured delivery of information in the internet age. In several recent public appearances during the last several months, the former president hinted at his frustration with the way conservative news outlets have shaped people’s perceptions about the divisive 2016 campaign and the issues he cares about.

“If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you are listening to NPR,” Mr. Obama told David Letterman in an interview broadcast in January for the comedian’s first Netflix program. Last December, at a forum in New Delhi, Mr. Obama conceded that “If I watch Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me. I would watch it and say, ‘Who is that guy?’”

Evidence began to emerge while Mr. Obama was president that Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube were being used to spread false information about candidates and issues. Social media’s impact on society became even clearer last month, when the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, indicted 13 Russians and three companies that had used social media companies to undermine democracy in the United States and push voters to reject Hillary Clinton.

As the election came to a close, Mr. Obama told The New Yorker that the new media landscape had made it possible for large swaths of the country to ignore facts. “Everything is true and nothing is true,” he complained. He later personally scolded Facebook’s chief executive for saying it was “crazy” to think the social network influenced the election.

For Netflix, securing the Obama programming is a part of the company’s broader search for original content, as the streaming service competes for viewers with HBO, Apple, Amazon and the traditional broadcast networks. Netflix has said it could spend as much as $8 billion on content this year. It has been paying top dollar for original programs like its hit Stranger Things and the documentary Icarus, which won the Oscar this year for best documentary feature.

It would also be another coup for a company that began by distributing DVDs and is now doing deals with some of the most powerful names in entertainment.

Several of the technology and media worlds’ top executives have been close advisers and donors to Mr. Obama over the years, including John Doerr and Reid Hoffman, the Silicon Valley venture capitalists, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the entertainment executive.

But Mr. Obama has particularly close ties to Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer. Mr. Sarandos is married to Nicole A. Avant, an activist who served as Mr. Obama’s ambassador to the Bahamas. And Reed Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix, was close to Mr. Obama while he was president and an attendee at state dinners. A spokesman for Netflix declined to comment about any discussions with the former president and his wife.

Some of the biggest media companies on the internet, like BuzzFeed and Vice, have embraced politically-themed programming, even as they have recently seen their growth flatline with shifts in the digital advertising and distribution landscapes. Political news start-ups like the website Axios and the podcast “Pod Save America,” hosted by former Obama officials, have connected with audiences that are eager for scoops, analysis and opinion.

The deal between Netflix and Mr. Obama would be a modern media twist on an approach that former politicians have tried in the past.

Al Gore, the former vice president, created a new cable network after losing the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000. Mr. Gore and Joel Hyatt, a businessman and Democratic activist, purchased a small cable company in 2004, eventually renaming it Current TV and positioning it as an “independent voice” in the political debate.

The network expanded its presence on cable and satellite networks and changed formats several times during the next eight years, at one point providing a home for Keith Olbermann, an outspoken liberal and a former host at MSNBC. In 2013, Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt sold their company to the Al Jazeera Media Network, which shut down the Current TV channel.

Mr. Obama’s approach is less of a direct challenge to the existing news establishment. But he is embracing the streaming services that have become a direct threat to the cable and network television infrastructure, especially among younger viewers.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 02:49 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Mr. Obama does not intend to use his Netflix shows to directly respond to President Trump or conservative critics,

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 03:12 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Gelukkig zeg. Hopelijk gebruikt hij het platform om over algemene wereldzaken te praten op een ook voor conservatieven redelijke manier. (Hoewel mijjn indruk was dat hij dat altijd al deed, behalve als dat via Fox News kwam .. zoals hij zelf al zei ... dat hij niet op hemzelf gestemd had als hij Fox News gekeken had)

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 03:19 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Nah dat soort kleuterigheid is niks voor hem

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 01:23 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Hij bedoelt: Kim flikt het.
Zo’n geavanceerd arsenaal aanleggen dat de tijd eindelijk rijp is (‘balance of power’) om op gelijke hoogte te praten.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 00:25 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Jij denkt dat Noord Korea z'n nukes gaat opgeven?

Ze willen onderhandelen en zullen een paar kleine concessies doen in ruil voor minder strenge sancties. Noord Korea heeft een aantal importgoederen hard nodig waar ze nu moeilijk aan kunnen komen. Maar de nukes gaan ze nooit opgeven hoor.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 01:18 schreef Nintex het volgende:


TRUMP flikt het

Haters be damned

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 07:39 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:
Nontex snapt er zoals gewoonlijk weer geen kont van.

SPOILER

I'm not a legal expert but the gist is that Trump is damned no matter what he does. If he admits to the affair he will be documenting in a court of law that his adultery is real and that Daniels has text messages from him and pictures of them together. If he denies it the NDA is invalid and she is free to sell her story to the highest bidder. Also, they can get him on obstruction of justice since special counsel is investigating possible sexual black mail.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 07:51 schreef Trumpinator het volgende:
Altijd leuk die Trump haters bezig te zien. Als het tot een militair conflict lijkt te komen met Noord Korea is Trump een gevaarlijke fascistische gek. Als hij ingaat op dialoog is Kim Jung Un de grote winnaar en Trump de volgende Chamberlain. Zo voorspelbaar ook.

quote:

Op donderdag 8 maart 2018 21:05 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Goh, ook toevallig!

twitter:

TheViewFromLL2 twitterde op donderdag 08-03-2018 om 01:08:40 Something I'd love to see a reporter ask Trump Org about:1) Cohen formed EC LLC on Oct 17 20162) The contract provided for EC LLC to pay Stormy $130K by Oct 27 20163) Between Oct 17 & Oct 25, the Trump campaign made payments to Trump Org properties that add up to $129,999.72. https://t.co/CMAxgl3Vn4 reageer retweet

1) Cohen formed EC LLC on Oct 17 2016
2) The contract provided for EC LLC to pay Stormy $130K by Oct 27 2016
3) Between Oct 17 & Oct 25, the Trump campaign made payments to Trump Org properties that add up to $129,999.72.

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 02:33 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Senior adviser at HUD spread conspiracy theory that Clinton campaign chairman was Satanist

[..]

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 07:43 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Het is me een raadsel waarom die leugenachtige troll z’n fanboy-nonsens hier weer zonder hinder mag komen verspreiden.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 07:57 schreef DustPuppy het volgende:
OA154: STORMY DANIELS IS A LEGAL GENIUS

Interessante podcast. Het lijkt zowaar dat niet Mueller, maar Stormy Daniels de ondergang van Trump gaat worden.

Samengevat:

SPOILER

I'm not a legal expert but the gist is that Trump is damned no matter what he does. If he admits to the affair he will be documenting in a court of law that his adultery is real and that Daniels has text messages from him and pictures of them together. If he denies it the NDA is invalid and she is free to sell her story to the highest bidder. Also, they can get him on obstruction of justice since special counsel is investigating possible sexual black mail.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 08:16 schreef JimmyDean het volgende:

[..]

Stond anders wel overduidelijk in de wikileaks emails, net als die mail over kinderen die in het zwembad zouden zijn voor "entertainment".

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 08:19 schreef J.B. het volgende:
Noord-Korea heeft dankzij Trump nu eindelijk wat het altijd al wilde: erkenning. Kim blijkt een uitstekend schaker, al is de vraag natuurlijk of het doorgaat.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 07:51 schreef Trumpinator het volgende:
Altijd leuk die Trump haters bezig te zien. Als het tot een militair conflict lijkt te komen met Noord Korea is Trump een gevaarlijke fascistische gek. Als hij ingaat op dialoog is Kim Jung Un de grote winnaar en Trump de volgende Chamberlain. Zo voorspelbaar ook.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 07:51 schreef Trumpinator het volgende:
Altijd leuk die Trump haters bezig te zien. Als het tot een militair conflict lijkt te komen met Noord Korea is Trump een gevaarlijke fascistische gek. Als hij ingaat op dialoog is Kim Jung Un de grote winnaar en Trump de volgende Chamberlain. Zo voorspelbaar ook.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 07:51 schreef Trumpinator het volgende:
Altijd leuk die Trump haters bezig te zien. Als het tot een militair conflict lijkt te komen met Noord Korea is Trump een gevaarlijke fascistische gek. Als hij ingaat op dialoog is Kim Jung Un de grote winnaar en Trump de volgende Chamberlain. Zo voorspelbaar ook.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 09:00 schreef speknek het volgende:

[..]

Hmm nee Trump is een gevaarlijke fascistische gek en de volgende Chamberlain volkomen onafhankelijk van wat hij met Noord Korea doet.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 07:57 schreef SureD1 het volgende:

[..]

Toegegeven, je kent je klassiekers beter dan de gemiddelde geschiedenisleraar hier

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 07:35 schreef DustPuppy het volgende:
Trump is de eerste president die ingaat op zo'n uitnodiging, niet de eerste die er één krijgt.

Hoe is dat een achievement?

quote:

A federal judge lit into Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and his lawyers for trying to introduce information in a trial over voter suppression without giving the other side a chance to review it.

In an unusual move, the Republican state official is representing his own office in a lawsuit challenging a Kansas requirement that residents prove they are U.S. citizens when they register to vote. Kobach and his legal team made a number of procedural missteps throughout the case and been reprimanded by U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson, a George W. Bush appointee, who is presiding over the trial.

The dispute Thursday was over the number of people who were on a list of “suspended” voters because their applications were incomplete. Kobach’s office initially provided the American Civil Liberties Union with that information in 2016, but at 10:45 the night before trial, the ACLU lawyers were given an updated list. Robinson didn’t allow Kobach to admit the updated list into evidence because she said it was unfair to spring it on the lawyers at the last minute.

SPOILER

But Kobach’s legal team tried to get the information into the record another way Thursday. While he was being questioned by one of the lawyers on Kobach’s team, the Kansas director of elections, Bryan Caskey, said he had recently done an updated analysis of the number of applicants whose voter registrations were considered incomplete and the number of those who had been removed from the “suspense” list for various reason.

Robinson, who had appeared to be patient for much of the trial, became visibly angry when Kobach’s team tried to introduce the evidence. When Kobach stood up and objected that the numbers were constantly changing and the court needed to be aware of the most recent information, Robinson said that the underlying data were always changing and that for the purposes of a fair trial, Kobach could not keep changing the numbers the court was reviewing.

“That’s not how trials are conducted,” Robinson told Kobach.

When an opposing attorney noted that Kobach’s office hadn’t given them an updated list since 2016, Robinson said that if the numbers were constantly changing, it was outrageous that Kobach hadn’t updated opposing attorneys for two years. When Sue Becker, an attorney helping represent Kobach, stood up to speak, Robinson angrily told her she was out of line.

Kobach’s attorneys have told Robinson that they are asking certain questions during examinations to preserve information in the record for an appeal. Robinson punctuated her rebuke of Kobach’s legal team by saying she wanted her own comments to be preserved in the record for an appeal.

Kobach’s lawyers have made a series of missteps in court this week. Throughout the week, Robinson has admonished Kobach and his lawyers for not following proper procedure when introducing evidence. At one point on Tuesday, she explained how the process was supposed to work and said what she was telling them was “Evidence 101.”

Earlier in the case, Kobach was sanctioned with a $1,000 fine for demonstrating “deceptive conduct and lack of candor” in his interactions with the court.

From May 2017 until January, Kobach led the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. The commission was sued several times for allegedly violating federal procedural laws. Facing legal scrutiny, the White House suddenly disbanded the panel in January.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 10:03 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Niet.

Alle oriëntalen zullen het zien als een mindere die naar een meerdere toekomt, zoals dat hoort.

Trump zal daar inmiddels best wel op gewezen zijn, maar dat waarschijnlijk afdoen als jaloezie.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 10:03 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Niet.

Alle oriëntalen zullen het zien als een mindere die naar een meerdere toekomt, zoals dat hoort.

Trump zal daar inmiddels best wel op gewezen zijn, maar dat waarschijnlijk afdoen als jaloezie.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 10:12 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
ah ja, deze:

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 09:25 schreef Wombcat het volgende:
Kim geeft Trump een mooi diner, terwijl ze een raketlancering bekijken (Trump is dan de eerste regeringsleider die een lancering van een andere macht mag bijwonen), terwijl hij dan uitlegt dat die raketten alleen voor self-defence zijn. Trump draait weer eens om en tekent een mooi verdrag waar in de kleine lettertjes staat dat de VS uranium aan NK leveren. Best deal ever!

quote:

The White House is refusing to comply with a request from House Oversight Committee’s Republican chairman for information on how top staffer Rob Porter was allowed to work with an interim security clearance in spite of accusations of domestic abuse.

White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short sent a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) politely neglecting to cooperate with their demands for information on how and why Porter was allowed to continue to work as White House staff secretary, a senior position, for months after the FBI had informed senior White House staff of allegations of spousal abuse. The letter was obtained by TPM Thursday evening, shortly after the committee received it.

[..]

quote:

“There is every reason to believe that North Korea is attempting to blunt sanctions and secure de facto legitimacy for its nuclear weapons program with this gesture,” said Michael J. Green, a former Asia adviser to President George W. Bush, speaking by telephone from Tokyo.

Evan S. Medeiros, an Asia adviser to President Barack Obama, said that any direct talks would elevate Mr. Kim and legitimize him. “We got nothing for it. And Kim will never give up his nukes,” Mr. Medeiros said. “Kim played Moon and is now playing Trump.”

This week, administration officials had spoken in scathing terms about North Korea's offer of direct talks. They noted that Mr. Kim said nothing about halting the production of nuclear bombs or missiles during negotiations -- which meant the North could build its arsenal while stringing out the talks.

NYT

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 07:51 schreef Trumpinator het volgende:
Altijd leuk die Trump haters bezig te zien. Als het tot een militair conflict lijkt te komen met Noord Korea is Trump een gevaarlijke fascistische gek. Als hij ingaat op dialoog is Kim Jung Un de grote winnaar en Trump de volgende Chamberlain. Zo voorspelbaar ook.

quote:

A federal lawsuit filed by a group of young people accusing the federal government of violating their constitutional right to life with fossil fuel policies that promote climate change has won a key ruling.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled Wednesday that the case can proceed toward trial. The ruling rejected the Trump administration’s request to throw the lawsuit as a “drastic and extraordinary remedy” for which Justice Department attorneys failed to make a case.

The 2015 complaint filed in Oregon by 21 young people, ages 10 to 21, argues that government policies have exacerbated climate change, in violation of their rights to life, liberty and property ― and those of future generations. The policies have also failed to protect “essential public trust resources,” the suit argues

SPOILER

The suit claims that for more than 50 years, presidents and eight federal agencies have promoted policies to support the energy industry’s use of fossil fuels, which are largely responsible for carbon emissions and climate change. The lawsuit calls for the government to develop a “constitutionally compliant national energy system and science-based climate recovery action.”

The appeals court “just gave us the green light for trial,” lawyer Julia Olson, executive director of Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit litigating the case with Earth Guardians, said Wednesday in a statement. “We will ask the District Court for a trial date in 2018 where we will put the federal government’s dangerous energy system and climate policies on trial for infringing on the constitutional rights of young people.”

Seattle plaintiff Kirnan Ooman, 21, said in a statement that the “question of the last few years has not been do we have a case, but rather how far will the federal government go to prevent justice?”

There was no immediate comment from the Justice Department.

The Justice Department argued that the federal judge in Eugene, Oregon, who refused to dismiss the case in 2016 had overstepped her authority. Federal attorneys claimed that the issues are not the business of the courts, but the sole purview of Congress and the president. The appeals court unanimously concluded that those arguments are “better addressed through the ordinary course of litigation.”

Trump’s Justice Department is likely to appeal the ruling and ask the Supreme Court to throw the case out, reports Bloomberg.

If that fails, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken of Oregon must then decide which government officials can be deposed.

twitter:

joshgerstein twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 15:19:32 BREAKING: Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg has arrived at federal court in Washington for expected grand jury appearance reageer retweet

quote:

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) on Thursday offered his first evidence of noncitizens trying to register to vote in a trial challenging a Kansas requirement that people prove their U.S. citizenship to get on the voter rolls.

The evidence was a spreadsheet of 38 instances of alleged illegal voter activity in Sedgwick County that Kobach’s office had compiled over 18 years, from 1999 to 2017. As of 2016, there were more than 293,000 registered voters in Sedgwick County and over 1.8 million in Kansas.

Documents like the spreadsheet will be crucial to Kobach as he makes his case that large numbers of noncitizens are trying to get onto the voting rolls. In order to preserve the Kansas law, he will have to show that noncitizen voter registration is a substantial problem and that nothing short of the state’s proof-of-citizenship law can stop it. Kobach’s office has identified 129 people who have attempted to or successfully registered since 2000, but he says that there could be nearly 18,000 noncitizens on the rolls and that he plans to present more evidence in the trial.

SPOILER

Kobach questioned Tabitha Lehman, the Sedgwick County election commissioner who compiled the spreadsheet data. Of the 38 people on the list, 18 had registered, 16 had attempted to register and four had been allowed to register after a federal judge issued an injunction in 2016 blocking the Kansas proof-of-citizenship law.

Of the 38 people on the list, only five had voted, some multiple times.

Prompted by Kobach, Lehman said there was no way to determine who those illegal voters cast their ballots for or to cancel them after they had been cast. Kobach has argued that Americans may never know who really won the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election because there could be millions of illegal voters on the rolls and it’s impossible to know who they voted for ― a claim President Donald Trump has also made. Democrat Hillary Clinton defeated Trump by nearly 3 million votes but lost the Electoral College vote. There is no evidence illegal voting is a widespread problem or that it swayed the 2016 election.

From May 2017 until January, Kobach led Trump’s voter fraud commission, which was sued several times for allegedly violating federal procedural laws. The White House disbanded the commission in January.

Angela Liu, a lawyer working with the American Civil Liberties Union to represent the plaintiffs ― five Kansas residents who were not allowed to vote in 2016 ― pressed Lehman on the details of the Sedgwick County spreadsheet. She noted that the 18 noncitizens who had registered over 18 years amounted to an average of one per year. Several of those on the spreadsheet were registered for many years but had never voted.

Liu also suggested the number of people on the list was inflated. She presented Lehman with documents showing that people on the spreadsheet had voluntarily disclosed they were not citizens on their voting applications but Kobach’s office had counted them anyway. Lehman noted many of them had signed an affirmation on their application saying they met all of the requirements to be eligible to vote, including that they were U.S. citizens.

Lehman’s testimony took up the morning of the third day of a trial that is moving forward slowly and is expected to spill over into next week. The ACLU had initially planned to play highly anticipated video of a deposition of Kobach on Thursday, but the parties weren’t able to move quickly enough through witnesses on Thursday.

It’s clear that both parties feel the sluggish pace of the case, and expert witnesses scheduled to testify for days have had to show up each day.

While the public packed the courthouse for the first day of the trial, it was far emptier on Wednesday and Thursday.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 16:02 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Het "3 miljoen illegale kiezers"-proces dendert ondertussen voort met het zinderende tempo van een slakje dat leert lijmzwemmen. Er zijn een aantal namen opgedoken die ten onrechte op de "rol" stonden, waarvan een deel bij inschrijving eerlijk heeft gezegd dat ze geen staatsburgers waren, maar dachten te mogen stemmen omdat ze bv al heel lang legaal in de VS woonden en waarvan het overgrote deel niet eens heeft gestemd, laat staan dat kan worden vastgesteld op wíé.

Kris Kobach Begins To Show Why He Thinks There’s Widespread Voter Fraud In Kansas

[..]

SPOILER

Kobach questioned Tabitha Lehman, the Sedgwick County election commissioner who compiled the spreadsheet data. Of the 38 people on the list, 18 had registered, 16 had attempted to register and four had been allowed to register after a federal judge issued an injunction in 2016 blocking the Kansas proof-of-citizenship law.

Of the 38 people on the list, only five had voted, some multiple times.

Prompted by Kobach, Lehman said there was no way to determine who those illegal voters cast their ballots for or to cancel them after they had been cast. Kobach has argued that Americans may never know who really won the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election because there could be millions of illegal voters on the rolls and it’s impossible to know who they voted for ― a claim President Donald Trump has also made. Democrat Hillary Clinton defeated Trump by nearly 3 million votes but lost the Electoral College vote. There is no evidence illegal voting is a widespread problem or that it swayed the 2016 election.

From May 2017 until January, Kobach led Trump’s voter fraud commission, which was sued several times for allegedly violating federal procedural laws. The White House disbanded the commission in January.

Angela Liu, a lawyer working with the American Civil Liberties Union to represent the plaintiffs ― five Kansas residents who were not allowed to vote in 2016 ― pressed Lehman on the details of the Sedgwick County spreadsheet. She noted that the 18 noncitizens who had registered over 18 years amounted to an average of one per year. Several of those on the spreadsheet were registered for many years but had never voted.

Liu also suggested the number of people on the list was inflated. She presented Lehman with documents showing that people on the spreadsheet had voluntarily disclosed they were not citizens on their voting applications but Kobach’s office had counted them anyway. Lehman noted many of them had signed an affirmation on their application saying they met all of the requirements to be eligible to vote, including that they were U.S. citizens.

Lehman’s testimony took up the morning of the third day of a trial that is moving forward slowly and is expected to spill over into next week. The ACLU had initially planned to play highly anticipated video of a deposition of Kobach on Thursday, but the parties weren’t able to move quickly enough through witnesses on Thursday.

It’s clear that both parties feel the sluggish pace of the case, and expert witnesses scheduled to testify for days have had to show up each day.

While the public packed the courthouse for the first day of the trial, it was far emptier on Wednesday and Thursday.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 14:27 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

En wat is je punt? Feit is gewoon dat NK nu atoombommen èn ICBM's heeft. Dat was vroeger niet zo.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 16:36 schreef Refragmental het volgende:

[..]

De voorgangers van Trump hebben inderdaad flink verzaakt.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 16:42 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:

[..]

Trump heeft het onder zijn wacht laten gebeuren.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 09:25 schreef Wombcat het volgende:
Kim geeft Trump een mooi diner, terwijl ze een raketlancering bekijken (Trump is dan de eerste regeringsleider die een lancering van een andere macht mag bijwonen), terwijl hij dan uitlegt dat die raketten alleen voor self-defence zijn. Trump draait weer eens om en tekent een mooi verdrag waar in de kleine lettertjes staat dat de VS uranium aan NK leveren. Best deal ever!

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 16:36 schreef Refragmental het volgende:

[..]

De voorgangers van Trump hebben inderdaad flink verzaakt.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 16:45 schreef rmrt2010 het volgende:

[..]

En dan gaat Trump dat breeduit voor de wereldmedia als een overwinning bestempelen en erbij zeggen dat het logisch is dat hij deze geweldige deal voor Amerika heeft weten te bewerkstelligen, omdat hij gewend is om als overwinnaar uit deals te komen. Zo iets toch?

En wie het waagt dit tegen te spreken houdt zich bezig met #fakenews. En dat is dus alle media behalve Foxnews.

twitter:

foxandfriends twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 13:18:39 .@Scaramucci breaks down what critics are missing about President Trump’s planned meeting with Kim Jong Un https://t.co/iXF5Gpz2DU reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 17:40 schreef OMG het volgende:
Geen idee wat hij te melden, maar het zal ongetwijfeld waardeloos zijn als jij het komt posten.

twitter:

thehill twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 17:19:05 Poll: Trump approval rating surges to highest level since he took office https://t.co/T9oXW7zoz9 https://t.co/7pxcFzxDRM reageer retweet

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 09-03-2018 om 17:47:37 JOBS, JOBS, JOBS! #MAGA https://t.co/YAaqRcA7ZS reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 17:46 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Triest dat dat Trump aanhangers met zelf bedachte ziektes komen om hun eigen cognitieve dissonantie te verbloemen.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 16:47 schreef Wombcat het volgende:

[..]

Hij zal ook nog wel zeggen dat Kim een OK-guy is en very smart.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 18:01 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Als er natuurlijk iemand last heeft van een Trumpsyndroom dan zijn het mensen als Nintex wel. Iedereen die een beetje op de hoogte is van geopolitiek kent het klappen van de zweep omtrent Noord-Korea wel. Trump is daarbij volstrekt irrelevant.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 08:40 schreef Montov het volgende:

[..]

De broer van de campagneleider van Clinton had een etentje met de naam spirit cooking met een New Age type.

OMG Clinton is satanist!

En kinderen in het zwembad is leuk amusement.

OMG Clinton pedo ring confirmed.

Laten we het nog even over Seth Rich hebben. Ook altijd leuk bij de conspiratards.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 18:09 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

't Is weer zo'n heerlijk stukje propaganda, wat mensen maar kunnen roepen, om niet hoeven in te gaan op de weerzinwekkendheid van Trump

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 18:44 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 18:02 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

Hij had zoiets toch al eens gezegd?

quote:

I won't rule out direct talks with Kim Jong Un, I just won't. As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that’s his problem, not mine. - Donald J. Trump

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 19:07 schreef Montov het volgende:
Trump over diplomatie NK: Don't waste your time, save your energy Tillerson:
Nintex: Yeea, let freedom ring
Trump accepteert diplomatiek gesprek
Nintex:

Trump: arm teachers
Nintex:
Trump: take the guns first.
Nintex:

Dat lijkt me een Windvaan Syndroom. Erg besmettelijk in een echokamer.

quote:

Op vrijdag 9 maart 2018 19:16 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Als je geen politieke opvattingen hebt moet je het nu eenmaal bij simplistisch tribalisme houden. Zie je veel hier op Fok.