quote:

"Infrastructure is by far the easiest. People want it -- Republicans and Democrats. We're going to have tremendous Democrat support on infrastructure as you know. I could've started with infrastructure -- I actually wanted to save the easy one for the one down the road. So we'll be having that done pretty quickly," Mr. Trump said at the White House Friday when he signed the tax overhaul.

quote:

Op maandag 25 december 2017 15:21 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Trump heeft nog niet gezien hoe de infrastructuur er aan toe is? "Willen" is hier echt het probleem niet, Donald!

quote:

Op maandag 25 december 2017 15:33 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
Hoe denkt hij een gigantisch infrastructuur-plan te gaan betalen? Hij heeft al een groot gat in de begroting geslagen met zijn belastingplan.

quote:

Op maandag 25 december 2017 15:35 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Werklozen en armen tegen kost en inwoning verplichten dit te doen?

quote:

Op maandag 25 december 2017 16:17 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:
Publiek-privaat, zal hoogstwaarschijnlijk door belastingvoordelen voor grote bouwbedrijven gefinancierd worden en door het heffen van tol op alle nieuwe bruggen.

quote:

Op maandag 25 december 2017 16:39 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Maar de waterleidingen en riolen en de verrotte stroomvoorziening dan?

quote:

Op maandag 25 december 2017 16:41 schreef nostra het volgende:
Dat lijken me geen federale uitgaven.

quote:

Op maandag 25 december 2017 16:46 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Over de titel: (en met excuses aan nostra... ik heb écht netjes gewacht, maar er kwam geen nieuw topic )

quote:

At least four times in the past week, the Trump administration has linked financial support for the United Nations to compliance with American demands.

First President Trump and his ambassador, Nikki R. Haley, fumed that all countries with seats on the Security Council except the United States had opposed American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and his decision to put the United States Embassy there.

Then Mr. Trump dared the General Assembly to follow the Security Council's example. "Let them vote against us," he said. "We will save a lot."

When the General Assembly voted 128 to 9 against the Americans, Ms. Haley said she would take names and remember them the next time the United States was asked for financial help from members who disagreed with its stance on Jerusalem.

The vote against the United States, she said, would make a difference "on how we look at countries who disrespect us at the U.N."

Then on Sunday, when United Nations members reached agreement on a 2018-2019 budget of $5.4 billion, Ms. Haley issued a statement emphasizing the American role in achieving more than $285 million in cuts, along with hints of more reductions to come.

"We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked," Ms. Haley said. In future negotiations, she said, "you can be sure we'll continue to look at ways to increase the U.N.'s efficiency while protecting our interests."

SPOILER

It was certainly not the first time Ms. Haley had hinted at using America's financial leverage to get its way at the United Nations. When she first took the job last January, she warned that "you're going to see a change in the way we do business."

And Secretary General António Guterres has said that some parts of the organization must become more efficient.

But the link between American largess and political sympathies at the United Nations has been a recurring theme for Mr. Trump, who once described the 72-year-old organization created after World War II as a sad social club that had squandered its potential.

Many among Mr. Trump's base of supporters regard the organization as suspiciously anti-American. When the $285 million budget cut was reported on Monday in Breitbart News, a media group that supports Mr. Trump, reader responses were ebullient, with some arguing that America's entire contribution should be rescinded.

Critics of Mr. Trump's approach to the United Nations argue that American coercion can work against the United States, by subverting respect for the agreed-upon protocol for financial contributions. They say Mr. Trump should not expect others to follow his lead just because the United States wields the biggest monetary cudgel.

"The hallmark of this administration is not paying attention to the benefits that the United States actually gets in a rule-bound system with international institutions," Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said after the Jerusalem vote last Thursday. "This is not something we can treat in a purely transactional way."

Under a formula tied to economic size and other measurements established under an article of the United Nations Charter, the United States is responsible for 22 percent of the United Nations operating budget, the largest contribution. It paid about $1.2 billion of the 2016-2017 budget of $5.4 billion.

The United States also is the largest single financial contributor, at 28.5 percent, to a separate budget for United Nations peacekeeping operations, which totals $6.8 billion in the 2017-2018 budget finalized in June.

Then, as now, Ms. Haley took credit for cuts to that budget, which she said had exceeded $500 million. "We're only getting started," she said at the time.

According to the United States Mission, the reductions in the budget reached on Sunday included across-the-board cuts in expenses for travel, consultants and other operating expenses. It also included tightened rules on compensation and new ways to maximize the use of United Nations headquarters in New York to reduce the need for expensive leased space.

Human rights groups reached on Monday reserved judgment on the new budget, saying they needed to see more details on how it might affect the United Nations' ability to monitor abuses or respond to emergencies -- major parts of its work.

They also did not necessarily disagree with Ms. Haley's appraisal of the cuts. But some worried about the potential impact of future reductions.

"There's nothing wrong with increasing efficiency and eliminating waste at the U.N.," said Louis Charbonneau, the United Nations director at Human Rights Watch. "But it's crucial that we don't curtail the U.N.'s ability to monitor, investigate and expose human rights abuses or its ability to save the lives of men, women and children worldwide."

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 04:03 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Dat zal ze leren!

Taking Credit for U.N. Budget Cut, Trump's Envoy Hints at More to Come

[..]

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 11:09 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Van Amerikaanse soft power blijft weinig over op deze manier. Straks resteert alleen Israël nog als die hard bondgenoot van de Amerikanen.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 11:12 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

Vergeet de volgende internationaal politieke zwaargewichten niet: Togo, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands, Guatemala & Honduras.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 11:19 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Niet dat de VS daadwerkelijk alleen staat. Het ontbreekt Trump echter aan de gunfactor. Denk dan ook dat weinig landen veel zin hebben om de Amerikanen te steunen op dit moment.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 11:09 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Van Amerikaanse soft power blijft weinig over op deze manier. Straks resteert alleen Israël nog als die hard bondgenoot van de Amerikanen.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 11:43 schreef Puddington het volgende:

[..]

Even niet vergeten dat zelfs met de cut de bijdrage van de VS aan de VN ruim 8 miljard dollar is, met afstand meer dan alle andere landen.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 11:51 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Uiteraard. Maar de toon die Trump aanslaat zet wereldwijd kwaad bloed. Denk je dat hij een alliantie op touw kan zetten in het geval van een oorlog met Noord-Korea of Iran? Ik betwijfel het.

twitter:

dlacalle_IA twitterde op dinsdag 26-12-2017 om 10:15:09 After the tax cut, companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google are considering repatriating $350 billion to the US (Bloomberg) reageer retweet

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 12:59 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

dlacalle_IA twitterde op dinsdag 26-12-2017 om 10:15:09 After the tax cut, companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google are considering repatriating $350 billion to the US (Bloomberg) reageer retweet

Billions and billions and billions....

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 12:59 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

dlacalle_IA twitterde op dinsdag 26-12-2017 om 10:15:09 After the tax cut, companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google are considering repatriating $350 billion to the US (Bloomberg) reageer retweet

Billions and billions and billions....

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 11:55 schreef Puddington het volgende:

[..]

Als Noord-Korea als eerste een raket lanceert dan moeten we wel, vanwege de NAVO.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op dinsdag 26-12-2017 om 14:24:27 WOW, @foxandfrlends “Dossier is bogus. Clinton Campaign, DNC funded Dossier. FBI CANNOT (after all of this time) V… https://t.co/3Lv4EhnuwV reageer retweet

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 14:27 schreef dellipder het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op dinsdag 26-12-2017 om 14:24:27 WOW, @foxandfrlends “Dossier is bogus. Clinton Campaign, DNC funded Dossier. FBI CANNOT (after all of this time) V… https://t.co/3Lv4EhnuwV reageer retweet

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 13:01 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]

Ja, want 21% is beter dan 0% belasting betalen, toch?

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 14:30 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Meneer zit weer eens met een colaatje het officiële propagandakanaal van het Trump-regime te kijken.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 14:32 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Natuurlijk is het posten en het ontleden van de Twitterberichten van Donald Trump enkel door jou en jouw gelijkgestemden in deze topic bon ton.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 14:32 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Natuurlijk is het posten en het ontleden van de Twitterberichten van Donald Trump enkel door jou en jouw gelijkgestemden in deze topic bon ton.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 14:33 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Waarom voel je je aangevallen? Ik reageer puur op die Tweet.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 14:34 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Het posten van enkel Twitterberichten zou sowieso verboden moeten worden in deze reeks oprotten met dat non-medium.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 14:37 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Omdat je dit nu pas toevoegt.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 14:03 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Waarom zouden ze dat doen?

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 14:52 schreef nostra het volgende:

[..]

Omdat de aandeelhouders die cash willen hebben. Dat gebeurde in 2004 ook.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 14:40 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Volgens mij was het redelijk duidelijk dat ik doelde op de aan cola en tv verslaafde POTUS doelde.

Fox is immers zijn propagandakanaal.

AP's Matt Lee Strikes Again: Calls Out Obama State Department On BS!!!

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 15:03 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:
Apple trekt zich al lang geen ruk meer aan van aandeelhouders, niemand heeft een groot genoeg blok aan aandelen om iets af te kunnen dwingen, echter, en bij Google hoeven ze zich niets aan te trekken van de aandeelhouders behalve de twee oprichters. Dus ja, lastig verhaal.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 14:37 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Omdat je dit nu pas toevoegt.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 15:15 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Ik snap de verwarring. Jij bent zo ongeveer de enige hier die Fox daadwerkelijk 'fair and balanced' vindt.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 15:15 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Ik snap de verwarring. Jij bent zo ongeveer de enige hier die Fox daadwerkelijk 'fair and balanced' vindt.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 14:34 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Het posten van enkel Twitterberichten zou sowieso verboden moeten worden in deze reeks oprotten met dat non-medium.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 16:37 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

In de woorden van Zijne Majesteit de Koning "Twitter maakt het debat bitter".

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 16:37 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

In de woorden van Zijne Majesteit de Koning "Twitter maakt het debat bitter".

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 16:17 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Reality-based media lijkt me dan ook een betere term; het feit of iets mainstream is of niet maakt natuurlijk geen drol uit.

quote:

Nearly 9 million people enrolled in Obamacare for 2018, despite efforts by Trump and GOP leaders to undermine the program. That has not stopped Trump from falsely taking credit for “essentially” repealing it.

“When the individual mandate is being repealed, that means Obamacare is being repealed,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting last week, before leaving Washington for Christmas. “We have essentially repealed Obamacare, and we will come up with something much better.”

The president also boasted that he tried to prevent the “fake news media” from reporting on it: “Obamacare has been repealed in this bill,” Trump said. “We didn’t want to bring it up. I told people specifically, ‘Be quiet with the fake news media,’ because I don’t want them talking too much about it.”

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 17:45 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Dat iemand graag waarde hecht aan zijn eigen verzonnen terminologie is mij om het even, maar in het belang van de discussie gebruik ik liever de meest gangbare termen en afkortingen.
MSM daarmee bedoel ik dus de verschillende grote massamedia die een groot aantal mensen kunnen beïnvloeden.
In veel landen hebben hebben opeenvolgende fusies geleid tot grote nieuwsconglomeraten. De concentratie van media-eigendom leidt tot homogenisering van standpunten.
MSM wordt gebruikt als oppositionele term in de afwijzing van deze homogenisering en bij het bespreken van mediabias.

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacommunicatie#Massamedia
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/mainstream_media

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 20:18 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Het wordt vooral gebruikt door lijmsnuivers. Daar heb je er nogal wat van vandaag de dag op internet.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 15:20 schreef dellipder het volgende:

Als je hier MSM tikt dan raakt menig gebruiker hier getriggerd

quote:

Een eventuele uitnodiging voor de Obama's om naar de bruiloft van prins Harry te komen, staat misschien op de tocht. Britse en Amerikaanse media melden dat topambtenaren in Groot-Brittannië bang zijn dat de uitnodiging de huidige relatie tussen het land en de Verenigde Staten in gevaar brengt.

Prins Harry is goed bevriend met de voormalige Amerikaanse president en zijn vrouw. Beide mannen zetten zich bijvoorbeeld met volle overtuiging in voor de Invictus Games, een populair internationaal sportevenement dat Harry in het leven riep voor militairen die tijdens hun dienst gewond raakten.

Volgens Britse kranten vrezen hoge ambtenaren echter dat de huidige president, Donald Trump, een uitnodiging voor de Obama's als een belediging beschouwt. Dat zou de toch al niet heel warme relatie tussen beide landen niet ten goede komen.

quote:

An Explosion Of Small Donations Powered Democratic Wins In Virginia House

An historic jump in small donations drove a wave of Democratic victories in Virginia’s House of Delegates in November, according to a new analysis.

Democratic House candidates received 153,422 contributions of $100 or less in the 2017 elections, compared to 7,332 such gifts for Republicans, the nonprofit Virginia Public Access Project found by analyzing official data.

Danica Roem, delegate-elect in Virginia’s 13th House district and the state’s first openly transgender lawmaker, picked up nearly 18,000 small donations ― more than the entire Republican total of such contributions.

more: https://www.huffingtonpos(...)5351e4b0b0e5a7a30a02

quote:

Democrat In Tied Virginia Race Tries To Stop Winner From Being Picked Out Of A Bowl

Democrat Shelly Simonds launched a last-minute effort Tuesday to prevent the race for a crucial seat in Virginia's House of Delegates from being settled by luck.

Initially, Yancey appeared to have beaten Simonds by 10 votes during the Nov. 7 election. But a recount completed on Dec. 19 determined Simonds had defeated Yancey by just one vote. One day later, the three-judge panel ruled a contested ballot that had been marked for Yancey but had been uncounted should have been counted for the Republican - bringing the score to a tie.

According to Virginia law, House races that result in a tie need to be decided "by lot." On Wednesday, a member of the State Board of Elections is scheduled to pick a film canister carrying a piece of paper with the name of the winner out of a bowl. If the court agrees with Simonds, the draw could be postponed.

If Simonds were to win the seat, Republicans would lose majority control of the House of Delegates after 17 years.

more: https://www.huffingtonpos(...)ae26e4b025f99e187ca4

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 21:06 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]


[..]

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 23:10 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Alweer een onverwachte vloedgolf van steun voor een Democratische kandidaat

[..]

quote:

Of course, both major parties remain heavily dependent on larger contributions. Donations of $100 or less made up 12.2 percent of Democratic House candidates’ fundraising total, and 2.5 percent of the total for Republican candidates.

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 23:20 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Maar de achterban lijkt inderdaad wakker te worden... *hier* dan wellicht geen doden aan de zijk, maar als het een landelijke trend blijkt te zijn...

quote:

Eric Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general, reached a milestone of sorts recently.

By moving to sue the Federal Communications Commission over net neutrality this month, his office took its 100th legal or administrative action against the Trump administration and congressional Republicans. His lawyers have challenged Mr. Trump’s first, second and third travel bans and sued over such diverse matters as a rollback in birth control coverage and a weakening of pollution standards. They have also unleashed a flurry of amicus briefs and formal letters, often with other Democratic attorneys general, assailing legislation they see as gutting consumer finance protections or civil rights.

“We try and protect New Yorkers from those who would do them harm,” Mr. Schneiderman said during a recent interview in his Manhattan office. “The biggest threat to New Yorkers right now is the federal government, so we’re responding to it.”

In Mr. Schneiderman’s seventh year as attorney general, the office has been transformed into a bulwark of resistance amid an unusually expansive level of confrontation with the federal government. Other Democratic state attorneys general are undertaking similar efforts, often in concert, like Xavier Becerra in California, where extra money was set aside in the budget for the attorney general to battle the Trump administration.

How far Mr. Schneiderman is willing to go in taking on Mr. Trump could define his political career, particularly in a blue state where disapproval of the president is high. The attorney general’s office potential for troublemaking and generating national headlines was redefined in the early 2000s by Eliot Spitzer. Mr. Schneiderman is a less combative man who was often the target of Mr. Trump’s Twitter wrath amid a three-year civil investigation into Trump University. In the end, Mr. Schneiderman’s office extracted a $25 million settlement in the case.

Nonetheless, Mr. Schneiderman is seen by some as a possible backstop should the president exercise his pardon power to help those who might become ensnared in the investigation of possible Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election being led by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel. Federal pardons do not apply to violations of state law.

SPOILER

In the interview, Mr. Schneiderman would say little about his potential role as a criminal prosecutor in relation to the Trump administration, except that he hoped it would not come to that. Earlier this year, Mr. Schneiderman began a criminal inquiry focused on allegations of money laundering by Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman. But his office stood down, at least temporarily, out of deference to the special counsel’s inquiry; the offices did not work together, his staff said.

“I have a lot of respect for the work the special counsel’s doing,” he said. “They’ve put together a terrific team.”

He added: “Just watching it from the outside, like everybody else, it seems like they’re doing a very thorough and serious job. “I hope there’s not going to be any effort to derail them or shut them down.

“If that happens, we’ll do — as I think would be a genuine sentiment around the country — we’ll do whatever we can do to see that justice is done. But I hope we don’t have to face a problem like that.”

Mr. Trump said recently he was not planning to fire Mr. Mueller, though many of his allies have stepped up their attacks on the special counsel’s investigation.

Regarding Mr. Schneiderman’s myriad legal filings, the White House referred questions to the Justice Department.

“The federal court system is not a substitute for the legislative process,” said Devin M. O’Malley, a spokesman there. “The Department of Justice will continue to defend the president’s constitutional and statutory authority to issue executive orders aimed at securing our borders, protecting U.S. workers, promoting free speech and religious liberty, among many other lawful actions.”

Republican attorneys general targeted President Obama’s policies while he was in office. Scott Pruitt, the head of Mr. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, sued the E.P.A. 14 times as Oklahoma attorney general. But if Mr. Schneiderman were to take on a criminal prosecution, it would very likely be met with disdain by conservatives. One columnist at the National Review already called for Mr. Schneiderman to recuse himself from any criminal investigation of Mr. Trump because his comments and civil actions made it “impossible for the public to have confidence that he could be impartial.”

Certainly, Mr. Schneiderman and Mr. Trump have little in common. Mr. Trump watches a lot of TV and craves his McDonald’s. Mr. Schneiderman does yoga. “Other than sports, I really don’t watch TV much anymore,” Mr. Schneiderman said, and paused to think about the last time he had eaten a fast food burger. “That’s a long time ago.”

Mr. Schneiderman also says “it’s better to have opponents and not enemies,” a statement that would seem to run counter to Trump doctrine.

During the Trump University inquiry, Mr. Trump called Mr. Schneiderman “a lightweight,” a “total loser,” the “nation’s worst AG,” and “dopey.” He has tweeted that Mr. Schneiderman wears “Revlon eyeliner” — his dark eyelashes have been attributed to the side effect of a glaucoma medication — and said he needed to take a drug test because the attorney general “cannot be a cokehead,” without presenting evidence that he was. In 2014, the front page of The New York Observer, which was owned by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, depicted him as Clockwork Eric, a takeoff on the Malcolm McDowell character from “A Clockwork Orange.”

Mr. Schneiderman continued to be an irritant, reaching the settlement last year in the Trump University case, and also barring Mr. Trump’s foundation from raising funds.

After Mr. Trump became president, Mr. Schneiderman was not expecting him to become “presidential.”

“I probably had more realistic expectations,” he said. “I saw the scorched-earth approach. He sued me for $100 million. He filed phony ethics complaints. He set up a website to attack me.”

“Before Lyin’ Ted and Little Marco, I had my nickname,” Mr. Schneiderman said, though Mr. Trump never appeared to settle on a single epithet. “I didn’t have any reason to believe he would change.”

The day after Mr. Trump’s victory, Mr. Schneiderman convened his staff in Manhattan and began the process of reorienting the mission of the office.

“The election was so traumatizing that my first step was to try and, essentially, pick everyone up off the canvas,” he said. “I had people who were too depressed to go into work.”

His staff soon began compiling something of a virtual war room, a Trump database to track federal actions and plan their responses. In some areas, Mr. Schneiderman said, they were “filling in” as the federal government rolled back enforcement of civil rights protections, wage rules and consumer protections.

“Then there’s the second category where they’re actually doing something to try and hurt New Yorkers,” he said. “And that’s not filling in, it’s more like fighting back. A galvanizing experience for that was the first travel ban.”

The pace of the confrontations with the administration has hardly abated. Recent actions have included joining 14 other states suing the E.P.A. “for failing to meet the Clean Air Act’s statutory deadline” related to unhealthy levels of smog, and challenging the administration’s move to bar a 17-year-old immigrant from getting an abortion.

“I did anticipate that the administration was going to be aggressively regressive,” Mr. Schneiderman said, adding: “I did not anticipate the volume that he was going to start pumping out so quickly. These guys were generating lots of trouble very quickly.”

That has led to a tighter relationship among Democratic attorneys general. “We don’t have a stronger or smarter ally,” Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, said of Mr. Schneiderman in a statement. He has also stayed in touch with Mr. Spitzer, who said in an interview that “Eric has done a good job” and "stepped into a chasm where today’s ideological divisions create a lot of room for litigation.”

Mr. Schneiderman’s office continues to undertake prosaic work, like a recent settlement with an upstate landlord who returned $43,000 worth of security deposits. There are weightier matters as well; a special investigations unit has been reviewing cases in which unarmed New Yorkers were killed by the police, a process that led to the recent indictment of an upstate district attorney on a perjury charge.

But the Trump administration remains a central focus.

“I was a little worried after the first few weeks about burnout,” Mr. Schneiderman said, but he added that lawyers in his office have resisted being moved off topics taking on the administration and felt that they were making a difference.

“On the one hand, it feels like this year has been a hundred years long,” he said. “On the other, it feels like it shot by.”

quote:

“The biggest threat to New Yorkers right now is the federal government.”

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 23:26 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Er lijkt in alle special elections wel duidelijk een 'enthousiasm gap' in het voordeel van de Democraten. In maart is er nog weer een interessante special election in Pennsylvania's 18e district voor de zetel van Tim Murphy. De echte test zijn de midterms in 2018. De Democraten hebben daar echter wel forse marges nodig. In de senaat moeten ze nog twee zetels zien te winnen terwijl er veel meer Democraten op moeten voor herverkiezing en in het huis hebben ze sowieso al iets van 5% marge nodig om een meerderheid te halen vanwege de districtindeling.

quote:

Op woensdag 27 december 2017 00:09 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Ik had 'm ook al gezien (ik heb ook een abo), vooral deze zin:

[..]

Waarom denk ik nou toch dat de geschiedenisboekjes geen spaan van Trump & co heel zullen laten? (En hij begreep er niets van, de FoxNews polls waren toch juist bijna altijd zo juichend?)

quote:

Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 14:03 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Waarom zouden ze dat doen?

quote:

The law specifically said the money could not be used to raise dividends or to repurchase shares.

Now the most detailed analysis of what actually happened — using confidential government data as well as corporate reports — has estimated what happened to the $299 billion companies brought back from foreign subsidiaries. About 92 percent of it went to shareholders, mostly in the form of increased share buybacks and the rest through increased dividends.

quote:

Op woensdag 27 december 2017 01:15 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
GOP Congressman says it's time to 'purge' FBI of anti-Trump elements (USA Today)

quote:

Op woensdag 27 december 2017 01:17 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Dus, of je steunt Trump, of je mag je biezen pakken. Erdogan praktijken.

Alles om de uitkomst van het onderzoek - waar Trump en zijn cronies blijkbaar niet veel goeds van verwachten - in diskrediet te brengen. Of hij schuldig is moet nog blijken, maar hij gedraagt zich er in ieder geval wel naar.

quote:

Op woensdag 27 december 2017 01:21 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ja, ik vind het nogal eng. Overigens is de oproep meer van "FBI agenten mogen geen enkele politieke voorkeur hebben." Dat zal voor een gemiddelde burger misschien best redelijk klinken.

quote:

Op woensdag 27 december 2017 01:25 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:
In een democratie mag iedereen een mening hebben en daarvoor uitkomen. Ook ambtenaren.

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In fact, nothing in the FBI code of ethics requires agents to be cleansed of political leanings.

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Smearing Robert Mueller (USA Today)

If Trump is innocent, why the effort to discredit the special counsel's findings?

When Robert Mueller was appointed in May to oversee the investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, he was universally praised as the perfect choice. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a vocal supporter of President Trump, tweeted that Mueller's "reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity."

And so it is. Amid the contemptible efforts to discredit Mueller's investigation, let's pause for a moment to remember who he is: A Republican. A Marine Corps veteran who earned a Bronze Star for valor and Purple Heart for a gunshot wound to his thigh during combat in Vietnam. A longtime federal prosecutor before President George W. Bush nominated him to direct the FBI in 2001 and the Senate unanimously confirmed him.

Mueller took office a week before Sept. 11 and led the bureau during the height of the war on terrorism, his agents tirelessly circumventing additional attacks. Mueller was so highly respected that he was asked to stay on under President Obama.

Yet as the Russia investigation gathered steam with charges brought against four former Trump campaign officials in recent months, a coterie of Republican congressmen, joined by commentators on Fox News and other Trump-friendly media outlets, have started calling for Mueller's head. Rarely has the American public been suddenly asked to revile a public figure once so widely revered.

SPOILER

"We are at risk of a coup d'etat in this country," Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., warned ominously on the House floor in November, using the sort of irresponsible language that could well inflame homegrown terrorists.

The special counsel's ostensible crime? Members of his staff - like every other American - hold political views in their private lives. In fact, nothing in the FBI code of ethics requires agents to be cleansed of political leanings. The fair investigation of political figures they might personally dislike is nothing new. Just the same, when Mueller learned last summer that one of his investigators had tweeted to another FBI employee that Trump is an "idiot," the investigator was immediately reassigned.

The Justice Department's inspector general is looking into any issue of bias at the FBI and will produce a report in the months ahead. In the meantime, there is zero evidence that Mueller has done anything wrong and every indication he is making headway into the vital issue of foreign intrusion into American elections.

The factions calling the special counsel's fairness into question are laying the groundwork for either undermining Mueller's conclusions or firing him. To pre-empt his possible removal, Congress should promptly pass bipartisan legislation to provide greater protections for the special counsel.

Where logic falls away amid the odious campaign to tarnish Mueller and his investigators - bolstered Tuesday by Trump's latest "FBI TAINTED" tweet - is with the prospect that the president might well be innocent of wrongdoing.

Imagine if that's true. If the Russia story is truly "fake news" and a "witch hunt," as the president and his minions insist, why would they sling mud at the very people and institutions that would place their valuable imprimatur on such a conclusion? Why, you have to wonder, are they so worried about what Mueller's investigation might reveal?

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Richard Painter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who served as chief ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush White House, agreed. “Using Twitter on Christmas Eve to intimidate a witness (McCabe) in a criminal investigation is not a very Christian way to celebrate the holiday,” he tweeted. “But it does make Mr. Mueller’s job easier and that’s a nice thing to do. Merry Christmas!”

Representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California who has been a vocal opponent of Trump, posted a similar message on Twitter: “.@POTUS has tweeted quite a bit about career FBI official Andrew McCabe, who could be called as a witness against Trump in an Obstruction of Justice case. Trump’s Twitter feed is the gift that keeps on giving. Merry Christmas Robert Mueller.”

The main federal law regarding tampering with a witness, victim or informant is 18 U.S. Code § 1512. Among other violations, the code calls for punishing “whoever knowingly uses intimidation, threatens or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so” in order to “influence, delay or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding” or “cause or induce any person to withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document or other object, from an official proceeding.”

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Op woensdag 27 december 2017 09:37 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
Mike Huckabee Says Trump Is Like Churchill. Historians Disagree

Weet gewoon niet hoe ik op zulke extreme kontenlikkerij moet reageren.

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Op woensdag 27 december 2017 09:37 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
Mike Huckabee Says Trump Is Like Churchill. Historians Disagree

Weet gewoon niet hoe ik op zulke extreme kontenlikkerij moet reageren.

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Britse topambtenaren maken zich grote zorgen over het plan van prins Harry en zijn verloofde Meghan Markle om oud-president Barack Obama en diens vrouw uit te nodigen voor hun huwelijk. Zo'n uitnodiging zou de woede wekken van de huidige bewoner van Het Witte Huis, Donald Trump.

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Op woensdag 27 december 2017 14:30 schreef Barbusse het volgende:
Londen nerveus: uitnodiging aan de Obama's voor huwelijk prins Harry zou woede Trump wekken

[..]

Grapje mag ik hopen? Een paar gasten op een koninklijke bruiloft die een diplomatieke rel tussen de UK en de VS veroorzaken?

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Een bezoek van de Obama's aan de kleinschalige bruiloft in St Georges Chapel bij Windsor Castle zou voor grote commotie, en bijbehorende tweets, kunnen zorgen in Het Witte Huis.

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Op woensdag 27 december 2017 14:30 schreef Barbusse het volgende:
Londen nerveus: uitnodiging aan de Obama's voor huwelijk prins Harry zou woede Trump wekken

[..]

Grapje mag ik hopen? Een paar gasten op een koninklijke bruiloft die een diplomatieke rel tussen de UK en de VS veroorzaken?

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Op woensdag 27 december 2017 14:30 schreef Barbusse het volgende:
Londen nerveus: uitnodiging aan de Obama's voor huwelijk prins Harry zou woede Trump wekken

[..]

Grapje mag ik hopen? Een paar gasten op een koninklijke bruiloft die een diplomatieke rel tussen de UK en de VS veroorzaken?

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The year-end move follows Trump’s use of Independence Day for self-promotion over national unity. He used Fourth of July celebrations to tout a new song for his campaign-style appearances. It mainly involves singing “Make America Great Again” over and over.

Trump has copyrighted the phrase “Make America Great Again”; imagine the royalties if he can get it added to U.S. currency in place of the boring motto “In God We Trust.” (He might also resolve the debate about whether to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 note instead of Andrew Jackson by putting himself on it.)

Bron

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Op woensdag 27 december 2017 14:30 schreef Barbusse het volgende:
Londen nerveus: uitnodiging aan de Obama's voor huwelijk prins Harry zou woede Trump wekken

[..]

Grapje mag ik hopen? Een paar gasten op een koninklijke bruiloft die een diplomatieke rel tussen de UK en de VS veroorzaken?

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Op woensdag 27 december 2017 14:30 schreef Barbusse het volgende:
Londen nerveus: uitnodiging aan de Obama's voor huwelijk prins Harry zou woede Trump wekken

[..]

Grapje mag ik hopen? Een paar gasten op een koninklijke bruiloft die een diplomatieke rel tussen de UK en de VS veroorzaken?

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Op woensdag 27 december 2017 15:22 schreef Arcee het volgende:

[..]

Obama

Kan me goed voorstellen dat je die liever op je bruiloft hebt dan die kinderachtige Trump.

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Op woensdag 27 december 2017 14:44 schreef DestroyerPiet het volgende:

[..]

Wat een kleuter is het toch ook.

Als hij graag had willen komen op dat feestje dan had hij zich niet zo moeten isoleren van alles en iedereen.

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Een bezoek van de Obama's aan de kleinschalige bruiloft in St Georges Chapel bij Windsor Castle zou voor grote commotie, en bijbehorende tweets, kunnen zorgen in Het Witte Huis.

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Op woensdag 27 december 2017 21:06 schreef Arcee het volgende:

[..]

Doen.

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Op dinsdag 26 december 2017 23:58 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Deze man en zijn gevecht tegen de afbraak van Trump en consorten op het gebied van mensenrechten, gezondheidszorg en milieu

New York’s Attorney General in Battle With Trump

[..]

quote:

Mueller teams up with New York attorney general in Manafort probe

Schneiderman has a contentious history with Trump. The president has mocked him relentlessly on social media and TV, denouncing him as a “hack” and “lightweight.”

The attorney general won a $25 million settlement last November after a lengthy investigation into allegedly fraudulent practices at Trump University. The president said he settled just to have the matter behind him, though his previous mantra was to never settle cases.

The New York prosecutor’s office also is looking into some of Trump’s business transactions and could potentially share those records with Mueller’s team, one of these people said. Those inquiries are in the preliminary stage.

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Mueller is reportedly zeroing in on the Trump campaign's data operation — and the RNC

• Special counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly begun to question Republican National Committee staffers about the party's digital work with the Trump campaign last year.

• The report indicates that Mueller may be homing in on yet another facet of Russia's election interference — its social media influence campaign and targeted political advertising.

• Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner managed the Trump campaign's data operation and recently hired a crisis public relations firm to handle all press inquiries.

[...]

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Op woensdag 27 december 2017 23:29 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

- Fijn dat McCabe een statement uit het dossier tot feit heeft omgedoopt, ondanks dat het dossier niet de oorsprong is van het onderzoek.

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Op woensdag 27 december 2017 23:43 schreef dellipder het volgende:
Peter Strzok was hoofd counter intelligence agent in de Clinton e-mail zaak, die Huma Abedin en Cheryl Mills heeft ondervraagd en de vrijpleitingsbrief van JamesComey veranderde (gross negligence naar extremely careless) en hij was een key speler die de Russia colusion delusion onderzoek op gang zette.
Dus ja, de vragen over hem zijn heel terecht. En ja, Robert Mueller heeft zich danig in zijn eigen voet geschoten met deze aanstelling (verschonen was de enige optie ivm bipartisan).
Heeft niks met jouw kleurrijke bloemlezing van een heksenjacht te maken.
Praat je ook alleen maar na van MSNBC, Politico of de Huffigton Post ofzo.
En over de rest; Russiagate is een heksenjcht. Impeachment en cover-up zijn de doelstellingen.

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Op woensdag 27 december 2017 23:53 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Je weet dat het eerste FISA verzoek is afgewezen en met het dossier dat werd opgetuigd als counterintelligence rapport een tweede bevelschrift is bemachtigd waarmee het Trump campagneteam is afgeluisterd en Micheal Flynn in de val is gelokt (liegen tegen de de FBI en de onderliggende actie praten met Kislyak zijn werk was en gecommuniceerd is met de uittredende administratie)?

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 00:02 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

`
Dit heeft niks te maken met Mueller. Hij heeft juist kordaat opgetreden.

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 00:07 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Dit heeft alles met Robert Mueller te maken. Hij heeft vanzelfsprekend kennis van de cv's van de mensen die hij aantrekt.

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 00:03 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Alsnog is het niet de basis van het onderzoek. Je zegt het zelf al, er waren daarvoor al aanwijzingen.

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President Trump’s legal team plans to cast former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn as a liar seeking to protect himself if he accuses the president or his senior aides of any wrongdoing, according to three people familiar with the strategy.

The approach would mark a sharp break from Trump’s previously sympathetic posture toward Flynn, whom he called a “wonderful man” when Flynn was ousted from the White House in February. Earlier this month, the president did not rule out a possible pardon for Flynn, who is cooperating with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Attorneys for Trump and his top advisers have privately expressed confidence that Flynn does not have any evidence that could implicate the president or his White House team. But since Flynn’s cooperation agreement with prosecutors was made public earlier this month, the administration has been strategizing how to neutralize him in case the former national security adviser does make any claims.

SPOILER

Flynn is the most senior former Trump adviser known to be providing information to Mueller’s team. The lenient terms of his plea agreement suggest he has promised significant information to investigators, legal experts said.

Earlier this month, he pleaded guilty to one felony count of lying to to the FBI, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Prosecutors said they will recommend a sentence from zero to six months in prison as part of his cooperation deal. Flynn’s son, who served as his chief of staff, also faced the risk of criminal charges, according to people familiar with the plea negotiations, but was spared.

Trump’s legal team has seized on Flynn’s agreement with prosecutors as fodder for a possible defense, if necessary. In court filings, the retired lieutenant general admitted that he lied to the FBI about conversations he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the December 2016 transition.

“He’s said it himself: He’s a liar,” said one person helping craft the strategy who was granted anonymity to describe private conversations.

Robert Kelner, an attorney for Flynn, declined to comment. Ty Cobb, the White House attorney overseeing the response to the special counsel investigation, also declined to comment.

Defense lawyers have said privately that Flynn will be unable to point to White House or campaign records turned over in the probe to bolster any claims of a criminal scheme. None of those records suggest a conspiracy by Trump or his inner circle to improperly work with Russians to defeat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, according to people who have reviewed the documents.

The private talks about assailing Flynn’s credibility come even as Trump has signaled that a pardon is not off the table.

“I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet,” the president said Dec. 15. “We’ll see what happens. Let’s see. I can say this: When you look at what’s gone on with the FBI and with the Justice Department, people are very, very angry.”

Some of Flynn’s family members appear to be counting on Trump to act. On Tuesday, one of Flynn’s brothers tweeted a message urging the president to pardon his former adviser, responding to a tweet by Trump alleging bias in the FBI.

“Mr. President, I personally believe that a pardon is due to General Flynn, given the apparent and obvious illegitimacy of the manner in which the so called ‘crimes’ he plead guilty to were extracted from him,” Joseph Flynn wrote. “I ask for quick action on this. Thank you and keep up the good work!”

Joseph Flynn did not respond to requests for comment.



Outside legal experts said that discussing ways to undermine a possible witness is a natural first step for defense lawyers to consider.

“It’s pretty predictable,” said Randall D. Eliason, a former public corruption prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington. “Defense will always argue that a cooperator who lied previously should not be believed, and that there is insufficient evidence of the conspiracy. It’s Defense Strategy 101.”

He added: “How effective it would be depends entirely on the strength of the other evidence that the prosecution can present to prove its case and corroborate Flynn.”

Barbara Van Gelder, a veteran white-collar defense lawyer and former prosecutor, called it “textbook” for the defense team to raise doubts about Flynn’s version of events.

“They will pull out all the arguments: ‘You pleaded guilty. You don’t have anything more than your word, and you probably got your son off with this. You got the deal of the century,’ ” she said.

Securing documents that corroborate the statements of cooperators such as Flynn is often key when the case comes down to dueling accounts, legal experts said.

“People’s recollections can be faulty but . . . you can’t cross-examine a document,” Van Gelder said. “It is what it is.”

Exactly what Flynn might offer Mueller about what he saw inside the Trump operation remains a mystery. Van Gelder noted that in the way the special counsel structured Flynn’s plea agreement, prosecutors avoided sharing the guts of their ongoing investigation.

“That is what I thought was the brilliance of the Flynn plea,” she said. “It said: ‘I’m giving just enough to have the judge sentence you within the guidelines, but not giving anything to anybody else.’ ”

White House advisers have noted Flynn did not plead guilty to being a co-conspirator in any criminal scheme, which they argue shows he is not able to provide evidence of a larger conspiracy.

Some legal experts said prosecutors could still rely on Flynn’s testimony to allege such a scheme. However, others said persuading a jury to charge a conspiracy that did not include a key witness would be more difficult.

If Mueller opted not to charge him in a conspiracy, Van Gelder asked, “how much of a crime is it, really?”

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 00:10 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Maar niet de texts die iemand verstuurt. Je veronderstelt professionaliteit, het ontbreken daarvan is alsnog niet aangetoond bij Strzok, maar de schijn wil je natuurlijk niet tegen hebben. Dus gewoon goed opgetreden in dit geval.

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 00:13 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Ik heb niet beweerd dat het Steele dossier de basis is van het onderzoek. Het is oorspronkelijk opposition reseach betaald door de DNC, HFA en OFA en vermoedelijk de FBI om daarmee een FISA bevelschrift te machtigen.
Het dossier is overigens een behoorlijk wapen gebleken dat gebruikt is isbij de bekende media om het narratief te pushen en prominent te houden.

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 00:23 schreef dellipder het volgende:
The Washington Post is altijd 'according to three people familiar', 'sources close to the matter' en 'people with knowledge and so on'...
Valt dit echt niet op?

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 00:22 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ik weet niet goed waarom je denkt dat het dossier een groot middel is geweest om een verhaal te pushen?

Stel nu dat het dossier niet publiek was geweest. Dan hadden we alsnog het Mueller onderzoek (althans, als Trump alsnog Comey ontslagen had), dan hadden we alsnog Russische meetings met Trump Jr. & co, dan hadden we alsnog texts van Assange richting Trump Jr. en enkele terug, dan hadden we alsnog Flynn die afspraken maakte met de Russische overheid voordat Trump in office was en daarna erover loog, om wat zaken te noemen.

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 00:30 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Omdat Russia, Russia, Russia nogal het nieuws heeft beheerst (geen CNN,MSNBC gekeken het afgelopen jaar of the Washington Post en Newsweek gelezen?).
En tweeledig. Enerzijds Russia collusion delusion met het PeePee dossier gepusht en anderzijds het dossier opgetuigd om een FISA bvelschrift te bemachtigen om de verkiezingscampagne van Trump af te luisteren.

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 00:29 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

WaPo gelijkstellen met een roddelblaadje lijkt me onterecht. Dat gezegd hebbende moet je natuurlijk wel altijd meenemen wanneer iets gebracht wordt door anonieme bronnen dat deze bronnen kunnen liegen of dat de uitgever kan liegen. NYTimes is zo bezien wat voorzichtiger hiermee. Ik heb overigens de indruk dat je veronderstelt dat anderen die niet jouw media volgen geen kritische media-volgers zouden zijn. Ik denk eigenlijk dat ze mogelijk nog kritischer zijn dan jij.

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 00:33 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Maar, nogmaals, dat verhaal hangt niet aan elkaar van dat dossier. Dat dossier is een interessant verhaaltje erbij. Hoe werkt dit? Ik geef je een aantal lijnen zonder dit dossier die hoe dan ook groot nieuws waren geweest en dan nog kom je terug over het dossier? Ik weet niet goed hoe ik je anders kan overtuigen ervan dat het dossier, hoewel van belang, niet van hoofdzakelijk belang is.

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 00:39 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

'Rodedlblaadje' heb ik niet gesteld. Dit is jouw kwalificatie

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Ik heb het over journalistiek en dat The Washington Post veel anonieme bronnen gebruikt en dan een ellenlang stuk schrijft, waardoor meestal alleen de kop wordt gelezen en onthouden.

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En wat jij veronderstelt moet je zelf weten. Ik maak me in elk geval niet druk over wat anderen voor media consumeren.

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Het is eerder andersom. 'Lijm snuiven' heet dat hier als je niet in dezelfde pas loopt.

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Buiten dat ik zulke mensen alle hulp toewens die ze nodig mochten hebben heb ik daar verder niks mee.

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 00:53 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

Klopt. Dat is namelijk hoe je het wil wegzetten en waar ik het mee oneens ben.

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Wat ok is, als dit te vertrouwen is en geen roddelblad ... en tegelijk, wat ook met een skeptische houding ontvangen moet worden, want anoniem.

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De specifieke media niet zo, of ze in mijn beleving gehersenspoeld worden wel wat. Zo is de term "mainstream media" denk ik wel ontworpen om een gevoel te creeereen van "oh, ik hoor niet bij de mainstream, dus ik ben onderdeel van deze speciale groep (die wel het echte nieuws krijgt)".
Het issue, wat wel echt is, namelijk dat extreem weinig eigenaars alle belangrijke media bezitten, wordt door juist de media die door Rupert Murdoch bezit worden niet gepushed, maar de term MSM wel.

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Dat is 1 user die dat gebruikt. Ik ben daar geen voorstander van.

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Vanzelfsprekend. Denk dat het ook meer overdrachtelijk bedoeld was.

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Barack Obama Is ‘Most Admired Man’ For 10th Year In A Row

Former President Barack Obama is the most admired man in the United States and has been for the past 10 years, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday.

The poll found that 17 percent of respondents declared Obama as the man they most admired, with President Donald Trump in second place with 14 percent. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was named the most admired woman with 9 percent of respondents, just surpassing the 7 percent who chose former first lady Michelle Obama.

quote:

Ivanka And Tiffany Trump Mercilessly Mocked For Mar-A-Lago Christmas Video

Tiffany and Ivanka Trump posed together in swimsuits to wish their followers a Merry Christmas from Mar-a-Lago. In a video clip Tiffany posted to her social media accounts on Tuesday, the sisters smile and blow kisses at the camera while "O Holy Night" plays in the background.

Social media users mercilessly mocked the sisters for their post. "I sure hope your fellow Americans in Puerto Rico who have been without power for 3 months enjoy this as much as you are," one commenter wrote on Instagram.

twitter:

budgie1949 twitterde op dinsdag 26-12-2017 om 22:12:25 @TiffanyATrump @IvankaTrump Sorry we missed you at the homeless shelter handing out Christmas gifts. reageer retweet

twitter:

JennM_P twitterde op dinsdag 26-12-2017 om 23:07:39 @TiffanyATrump @IvankaTrump Ugh. I hope my tax dollars aren't going to this mess. reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 01:37 schreef dellipder het volgende:
Er kan van alles mis zijn met anonieme bronnen. Volgens mij ben je de uitglijder van Brian Ross en de 350 punten van de Dow alweer vergeten.
Maar als je graag die ellenlange nietszeggende Washington Post artikelen wilt lezen, by all means.
Het enige waar ik op wees is dat The Washington Post heel regelmatig zulke stukken schrijft via niet verifieerbare bronnen. Niet verifieerbaar.

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 01:56 schreef OMG het volgende:

[..]

Niet voor jouw verifieerbaar, maakt het niet meteen een onbetrouwbare bron. Zoals gezegd, er zijn genoeg redenen te bedenken waarom iemand anoniem wil blijven of een journalist een bron anoniem houdt.

En wanneer denk je dat Trump er eens mee begint, met verifieerbare niet anonieme bronnen te melden in plaats het gebruikelijke "many people say"? Daar windt je je natuurlijk ook over op. Toch?

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 02:19 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Mij lijkt het verstandig dat wanneer een artikel gebaseerd is op hear say dit als zodanig te beoordelen.
Maar dat ben ik.

Ondanks de vele hit pieces van The Washington Post vind ik jouw gefabriceerde tegenstelling tussen deze krant en Donald Trump uiterst merkwaardig.

Ik snijd een onderwerp aan, feitelijk slechts een terloopse opmerking over een media outlet.
Het lukt mij om zo'n opmerking te maken zonder Donald Trump erbij te betrekken.
Zou je voor de grap ook eens moeten doen!

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 02:19 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Mij lijkt het verstandig dat wanneer een artikel gebaseerd is op hear say dit als zodanig te beoordelen.
Maar dat ben ik.

Ondanks de vele hit pieces van The Washington Post vind ik jouw gefabriceerde tegenstelling tussen deze krant en Donald Trump uiterst merkwaardig.

Ik snijd een onderwerp aan, feitelijk slechts een terloopse opmerking over een media outlet.
Het lukt mij om zo'n opmerking te maken zonder Donald Trump erbij te betrekken.
Zou je voor de grap ook eens moeten doen!

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 02:30 schreef OMG het volgende:

[..]

Nou, nou, merkwaardig. Het zou leuk zijn als je eens consistent zou zijn. Als anonieme bronnen bij de WaPo een probleem voor je zijn

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Op donderdag 28 december 2017 02:36 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Is voor mij geen probleem.

quote:

It was supposed to be a tax cut for manufacturers. Then it got out of control.

World Wrestling Entertainment took it for producing wrestling videos. Regional gas stations claimed it because they mix ethanol with base fuel. Grocery stores asked for it because they spray their fruit so that it ripens. Pharmacies could take it because they have booths that print photos.

Republicans in Congress passed that deduction more than a decade ago, and they repealed it in the tax bill signed on Friday by President Trump. It is a lesson in the abundant creativity of American business in interpreting the tax code.

The latest overhaul could play out the same way. Already, lawyers and accountants are eyeing several provisions that investors and companies could potentially exploit.

SPOILER

The bill, for example, lowers the taxes on so-called pass-through income, which is earned by partnerships and other types of businesses. Congress sold the provision as a way to help smaller companies. But lawmakers added language that allowed big real estate developers to benefit. The result could be a tax break for any company that buys and operates a building for its business.

The new law is also supposed to encourage companies to make investments in the United States. But the rules were written in such a way that they could give businesses an incentive to keep their money in foreign countries and build factories abroad.

The wildly popular manufacturing break, passed in 2004, is a case study in the unforeseen consequences of changing the tax code - how companies take advantage of gaping holes and force the government to play catch-up.

The provision, known as the domestic production activities deduction, gave companies a tax break on income they earned from making things in the United States. It was intended to help American manufacturers, which were struggling to hold their own against competition from overseas.

Then a raft of other industries heard about the rule as it was being devised and fired up their lobbying machines. Suddenly, everyone became a manufacturer.

Movie studios got the break because they produced films, and tech giants won it, too, for making computer software. Construction companies got it for making buildings, and so did engineers and architects for designing them.

Starbucks hired lobbyists to make the case that it, too, was a producer, because the company roasts coffee beans. Congress added language that allowed coffee shops to deduct a percentage of every cup sold if it was made with beans they roasted off site. It became known as the Starbucks footnote.

"This has been a boondoggle tax expenditure," said Robert J. Shapiro, a former Commerce Department official who founded the economic advisory firm Sonecon. "It is a political lesson. You are always liable to create tax loopholes that grow."

The government initially estimated that the 2004 law would cost a net $27.3 billion from 2005 through 2014. It ended up costing over $90 billion during that period, according to a congressional report.

The Internal Revenue Service had to warn retailers that cutting keys doesn’t make you a manufacturer. Neither does mixing paint, putting plants in the sun to grow or writing "Happy birthday" on a cake you didn’t bake.

But in more than a decade of battling with companies about the rule, the government gave up more ground than it won. One of its most epic losses came at the hands of a David-size challenger in Fullerton, Calif.

It all started in tax class. Dan Maguire, an accountant by trade, was sitting in a seminar about the new features of the tax code in 2005 when he first heard about the manufacturing deduction. He became obsessed.

"I’m thinking, ‘Gosh, as crazy as it is, this is a good deduction for Houdini,’" he said. Houdini Inc., better known as Wine Country Gift Baskets, is a plucky maker of assortments for special occasions that employs Mr. Maguire as its chief financial officer.

Mr. Maguire filed for the deduction in amended returns for 2005 and 2006. The I.R.S. gave Houdini a refund of close to $300,000. Then, when it realized what had happened, it doubled back and audited the company, demanding that Houdini return the money.

"It’s the government - what do you expect?" Mr. Maguire said. "They aren’t exactly an efficiently run organization."

When Houdini refused to give the refund back, the government sued the company in 2011. At issue was a straightforward question: Does putting wine and chocolate into a basket amount to manufacturing? Federal lawyers sputtered at the thought.

"I can make a gift basket at home," pleaded one government lawyer, according to a transcript in the case. "I can go to the store, and I can purchase these items and put them into a basket which I have purchased and put cellophane wrap around it, but in the process, I have not altered anything in it."

The problem, for the government, was that its lawyers didn’t have much to stand on. The deduction’s regulations explicitly defined manufacturing as "combining or assembling two or more articles."

Just putting two things together wouldn’t count, but Houdini argued that it had all the elements of a traditional manufacturing system going in its warehouses. There are assembly lines, conveyor belts, forklifts, "just like Henry Ford," Mr. Maguire said.

In the end, a federal judge ruled against the government. Mr. Maguire has been claiming the deduction ever since. It has saved the company over $5 million. "This was a fun lesson to teach the I.R.S.," he said, with conviction.

The government took it on the chin once more over the deduction when a medicine packaging company sued the I.R.S. in 2012. The company, Precision Dose, said it deserved the deduction, which had been denied. It did not make the liquid medicine or the cups that the medicine went into. But it did design the cups and the lids on them. The government said the company was just repackaging drugs.

Judge Philip G. Reinhard, in federal court in Illinois, took the company’s side.

That will all be moot with the latest tax bill. Congressional Republicans said the deduction was no longer necessary with the overall reduction of the corporate tax rate. So the hunt for unintended gold mines will go down new paths.

"If the bar has been set low by the regulation, you can understand why taxpayers are claiming it," said Connie Cheng, a tax managing director at the accounting firm BDO USA. It took longer to write the law that included the manufacturing deduction in 2004 than it did to shape the entire tax bill this time around. The haste is sure to create countless new adventures for accountants like Ms. Cheng.

"That’s the nature of tax in general," she said. "Every time you write a rule, there are people out there who think about ‘How do we get creative with it, and how do we get around it?’"

quote:

President Donald Trump falsely claimed on Wednesday that he had signed more legislation than any of his predecessors at this point in their terms.

“You know, one of the things that people don’t understand — we have signed more legislation than anybody,” the president said in remarks to roughly four dozen first responders at a firehouse in West Palm Beach, Florida. “We broke the record of Harry Truman.”

It is true that Trump had signed more bills in his first 100 days than any president since Truman, but as Trump nears the anniversary of his Jan. 20 inauguration, he is far removed from his 100th day. And he has now signed the fewest number of bills into law of any first-year president dating back to Dwight Eisenhower, according to a recent report from the website GovTrack.

The report was published last Thursday, a day before the president signed a $1.5 trillion tax-cut bill and headed to his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach for the holidays.

SPOILER

Trump called the tax bill, which includes provisions mandating the federal government to hold oil-lease sales in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and repealing Obamacare’s unpopular individual mandate, “the legislation of all legislation” and “the biggest there is.”

Trump repeated his claim to first responders that his administration had passed a lot of legislation, though last week’s tax bill was the first and only major legislative achievement of his presidency thus far. And, according to GovTrack, Trump has signed fewer bills at this point in his presidency than George W. Bush had — and less than half as many bills as Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush had at this point.

“I believe we have — and you’ll have to ask those folks, but I think they know the real answer,” Trump said, apparently referring to the media. “We have more legislation passed, including — the record was Harry Truman. That’s a long time ago. And we broke that record. So we have a lot done.”

At the firehouse, the president thanked first responders for their service.

“I just want to thank everybody for the fantastic job you’ve done and are doing,” he said. “What you do, in terms of paramedics and fire and all of the other things you do that people don’t appreciate like they should. But we appreciate it.”

Trump’s visit had not previously been announced — the president’s schedule had no public events listed. He spent about five hours at Trump International Golf Club, where he presumably hit the links on Wednesday. The White House, however, refused to say what the president did there.

On Tuesday, Trump spent about four hours playing golf with Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, professional golfer Bryson DeChambeau and former pro golfer Dana Quigley.

Trump had tweeted Monday night that he hopes “everyone is having a great Christmas,” adding that “tomorrow it’s back to work in order to Make America Great Again (which is happening faster than anyone anticipated)!”

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 02:42 schreef OMG het volgende:

[..]

Kom maar op met je klaagpost over Trump dan. Hoe verschrikkelijk het wel niet is dat meneer nooit bronnen noemt.

quote:

Among President Trump’s worrisome nominees to the judiciary, perhaps none is as alarming as Thomas Alvin Farr, a protégé of Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina senator, and a product of the modern white supremacist machine that Mr. Helms pioneered.

Mr. Farr, nominated to serve on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, began his career as counsel for Mr. Helms’s Senate campaigns, where he participated in racist tactics to intimidate African-American voters. This alone is reason to reject his nomination, as is his apparent lying on the topic to the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Mr. Farr’s connections to Mr. Helms’s white supremacist causes and political network go much deeper.

SPOILER

Having lived in North Carolina since childhood, I know Mr. Helms’s racist legacy and I hold no doubts that Mr. Farr perpetuates it. An unabashed segregationist, Mr. Helms was affiliated with the Council of Conservative Citizens, an outgrowth of the White Citizens’ Councils that promoted white supremacy. Mr. Helms, who served in the Senate for 30 years, used his honorable seat to support the apartheid regime in South Africa while opposing desegregation, civil rights legislation and the creation of the Martin Luther King’s Birthday holiday in this country. Mr. Helms also belittled Carol Moseley Braun, the only black senator at the time, by singing “Dixie” to her in the Senate elevator.

Mr. Farr’s former law partner, Thomas Ellis, was Mr. Helms’s top deputy for decades. He also served as a director of the Nazi-inspired, pro-eugenics Pioneer Fund and used funding from that organization to create and bankroll a network of interlocking organizations to support Mr. Helms and other political candidates who espoused the notion of a superior white race and opposed civil rights.

Together, Mr. Helms, Mr. Ellis, and their protégé Mr. Farr unleashed a huge propaganda machine that incited hostility toward African-Americans. Mr. Farr served as a lead counsel to Mr. Helms’s 1990 Senate campaign, which ran the now-infamous “White Hands” TV television ad, designed to inflame white voter anxiety over Mr. Helms’s black opponent, Harvey Gantt. It showed a pair of white hands balling up a rejection letter while a voice said: “You needed that job and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota.” The same campaign also sent more than 100,000 intimidating postcards to North Carolinians, most of whom were blacks eligible to vote, wrongly suggesting they were ineligible and warning that they could be prosecuted for fraud if they tried to cast ballots.

Mr. Farr represented the Helms campaign in 1984, when it circulated photos of his opponent, Gov. Jim Hunt, with African-American leaders in an attempt to foster white resentment. The racist nature of that campaign was so pronounced that a federal court cited it as an example of how bigotry in elections continued to flourish in North Carolina politics.

A straight line runs from the racial polarization inflamed for decades by Mr. Helms and his political machine to the re-emergence of violent white supremacists in the past year in places like Charlottesville, Va.

When Mr. Farr graduated from law school, Mr. Helms and Mr. Ellis brought him into their fold. Mr. Farr joined the small law firm of Maupin, Taylor & Ellis, where all of the named partners were openly hostile to civil rights. Mr. Farr followed those lawyers to other firms and maintained a close collaboration with Mr. Ellis for at least 34 years. Mr. Farr disclosed on his Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire that he spoke “in honor of” Mr. Ellis as recently as 2007. And over decades of association with Mr. Helms and Mr. Ellis, he never publicly denounced or even faintly criticized their notorious racism and belief in white superiority.

To the contrary, Mr. Farr worked closely with Mr. Ellis to represent Mr. Helms’s agenda in court. Significantly, he represented several of the Helms entities that received large donations from the Pioneer Fund, including the Coalition for Freedom.

Most recently, Mr. Farr has carried on Mr. Helms’s legacy by helping North Carolina’s Republican-led Legislature create and defend in court discriminatory voting restrictions and electoral districts, which were eventually struck down by numerous federal courts that found them to be motivated by intentional racism. In fact, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found that the state’s 2013 voter suppression law was aimed at blacks with “almost surgical precision.”

African-Americans seeking to have their rights protected under federal law have much to fear if Mr. Farr takes the bench. This is particularly the case in the Eastern District of North Carolina, which covers an area where about half of the state’s African-American residents live and is often referred to as its Black Belt. The Eastern District has not had a black judge in its 145-year history. President Barack Obama’s attempts to desegregate this federal bench were obstructed by Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, who blocked the vote on two highly qualified female African-American nominees and who now supports Mr. Farr’s nomination to the Eastern District.

Senators from both sides of the aisle must condemn the experience Mr. Farr brings with him. Having practiced white supremacy for decades, Mr. Farr is not likely to withdraw. Every senator who condemned the racism on display in Charlottesville must vote to prevent it from having power in the federal judiciary.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 03:03 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
William Barber II: Trump’s Terrible Choice for Judge

Je vraagt je af waar Trump al die mensen vandaan haalt die zó totaal ongeschikt voor hun functie zijn. Nou, hij heeft er kennelijk nog velen in voorraad, we hebben bijvoorbeeld lang nog niet genoeg White Supremacist-rechters.

Ja, ik zei "rechters".

[..]

SPOILER

Having lived in North Carolina since childhood, I know Mr. Helms’s racist legacy and I hold no doubts that Mr. Farr perpetuates it. An unabashed segregationist, Mr. Helms was affiliated with the Council of Conservative Citizens, an outgrowth of the White Citizens’ Councils that promoted white supremacy. Mr. Helms, who served in the Senate for 30 years, used his honorable seat to support the apartheid regime in South Africa while opposing desegregation, civil rights legislation and the creation of the Martin Luther King’s Birthday holiday in this country. Mr. Helms also belittled Carol Moseley Braun, the only black senator at the time, by singing “Dixie” to her in the Senate elevator.

Mr. Farr’s former law partner, Thomas Ellis, was Mr. Helms’s top deputy for decades. He also served as a director of the Nazi-inspired, pro-eugenics Pioneer Fund and used funding from that organization to create and bankroll a network of interlocking organizations to support Mr. Helms and other political candidates who espoused the notion of a superior white race and opposed civil rights.

Together, Mr. Helms, Mr. Ellis, and their protégé Mr. Farr unleashed a huge propaganda machine that incited hostility toward African-Americans. Mr. Farr served as a lead counsel to Mr. Helms’s 1990 Senate campaign, which ran the now-infamous “White Hands” TV television ad, designed to inflame white voter anxiety over Mr. Helms’s black opponent, Harvey Gantt. It showed a pair of white hands balling up a rejection letter while a voice said: “You needed that job and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota.” The same campaign also sent more than 100,000 intimidating postcards to North Carolinians, most of whom were blacks eligible to vote, wrongly suggesting they were ineligible and warning that they could be prosecuted for fraud if they tried to cast ballots.

Mr. Farr represented the Helms campaign in 1984, when it circulated photos of his opponent, Gov. Jim Hunt, with African-American leaders in an attempt to foster white resentment. The racist nature of that campaign was so pronounced that a federal court cited it as an example of how bigotry in elections continued to flourish in North Carolina politics.

A straight line runs from the racial polarization inflamed for decades by Mr. Helms and his political machine to the re-emergence of violent white supremacists in the past year in places like Charlottesville, Va.

When Mr. Farr graduated from law school, Mr. Helms and Mr. Ellis brought him into their fold. Mr. Farr joined the small law firm of Maupin, Taylor & Ellis, where all of the named partners were openly hostile to civil rights. Mr. Farr followed those lawyers to other firms and maintained a close collaboration with Mr. Ellis for at least 34 years. Mr. Farr disclosed on his Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire that he spoke “in honor of” Mr. Ellis as recently as 2007. And over decades of association with Mr. Helms and Mr. Ellis, he never publicly denounced or even faintly criticized their notorious racism and belief in white superiority.

To the contrary, Mr. Farr worked closely with Mr. Ellis to represent Mr. Helms’s agenda in court. Significantly, he represented several of the Helms entities that received large donations from the Pioneer Fund, including the Coalition for Freedom.

Most recently, Mr. Farr has carried on Mr. Helms’s legacy by helping North Carolina’s Republican-led Legislature create and defend in court discriminatory voting restrictions and electoral districts, which were eventually struck down by numerous federal courts that found them to be motivated by intentional racism. In fact, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found that the state’s 2013 voter suppression law was aimed at blacks with “almost surgical precision.”

African-Americans seeking to have their rights protected under federal law have much to fear if Mr. Farr takes the bench. This is particularly the case in the Eastern District of North Carolina, which covers an area where about half of the state’s African-American residents live and is often referred to as its Black Belt. The Eastern District has not had a black judge in its 145-year history. President Barack Obama’s attempts to desegregate this federal bench were obstructed by Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, who blocked the vote on two highly qualified female African-American nominees and who now supports Mr. Farr’s nomination to the Eastern District.

Senators from both sides of the aisle must condemn the experience Mr. Farr brings with him. Having practiced white supremacy for decades, Mr. Farr is not likely to withdraw. Every senator who condemned the racism on display in Charlottesville must vote to prevent it from having power in the federal judiciary.

(Het nieuws wordt u vannacht trouwens weer eens aangeboden door Kijkertje en brokjespoes. )

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 03:00 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Ik heb nog steeds moeite met jouw gefabriceerde tegenstelling tussen een krant en Donald Trump.
Zit die man je zo hoog?
Daar hebben ze vast wel iets, een middeltje tegen.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 03:12 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Anoniem uit betrouwbare bronnen

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 03:14 schreef OMG het volgende:

[..]

Draai, draai. Waarom is een anonieme bron bij de WaPo zo'n probleem, en bij een Trump niet? Vanwaar die dubbele standaard, pil?

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 03:17 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

En zonder onderling overleg tóch (volgens mij) nog nooit hetzelfde verhaal gedaan, al gaat het soms best hard hier.

Dat vind ik wel eens echt knap van ons.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 03:20 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Ik stelde zojuist al dat ik geen probleem heb.
Maar ongeacht dit wel of niet het geval is vind ik niet dat wanneer ik over een onderwerp iets aanhang automatisch een opvatting over Donald Trump in dat verband moet debiteren.

Waar jij op doordramt is heel infantiel en dat gejammer over Trump laat ik aan jou over.
Daar ben je blijkbaar heel goed in. En ik hou mij bezig met de inhoud van mijn berichten die ik zelf bepaal. Ik bepaal zelf wat en wanneer ik iets van iemand of iets vind. Capice?!!

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 03:28 schreef OMG het volgende:

[..]

Geef nou eens antwoord, waarom is het bij de WaPo wel een probleem en bij Trump niet?

Dat er enigszins een verband is tussen een medium, Trump, en hoe jij ze behandelt in een topic over Amerikaanse politiek is natuurlijk niet zo heel raar. Dat jij dat blijkbaar niet wilt zien, tja.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 03:31 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Lees die thread gewoon eens rustig terug.
Nergens daarin is er een aanleiding voor jouw gefabriceerde tegenstelling, behalve tussen jouw oren.
En dit gedram brengt je nergens. Dat is in elk geval zeker.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 01:39 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Heeft Donald al getwieterd?

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 28-12-2017 om 03:09:22 “On 1/20 - the day Trump was inaugurated - an estimated 35,000 ISIS fighters held approx 17,500 square miles of ter… https://t.co/xnR1mXhmr3 reageer retweet

twitter:

EdKrassen twitterde op donderdag 28-12-2017 om 03:11:13 Stop making it out like this is your doing. Thanks Obama. reageer retweet

twitter:

Miriam2626 twitterde op donderdag 28-12-2017 om 03:43:00 They retreated when you became president because they figured you would kill our democracy without their help. reageer retweet

twitter:

Skitters1 twitterde op donderdag 28-12-2017 om 03:28:23 We heard you the first time you tweeted this. Stop tweeting in the third person reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 05:19 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Oja, BREAKING! Donald Trump alwéér niet op Bloomberg's lijst van 500 rijkste mensen! (Heeft hij er al over getwieterd? )

Klik op de link om te zien of er nog bekende Fok!kers bijstaan: https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 05:55 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Bezos op nummer 1 en die gaat volgend jaar ook lekker profiteren van Trump's kerstcadeautje

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 06:32 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Ik denk dat Bezos het geld gewoon in de verdere robotisering van zijn bedrijf steekt. Dan hoeft hij minder mensen in dienst te nemen.

quote:

Moore legt zich niet neer bij verkiezingsnederlaag

De Republikeinse kandidaat voor de Senaat Roy Moore legt zich niet neer bij zijn verkiezingsnederlaag in Alabama eerder deze maand. In een verklaring schrijft zijn campagneteam dat er waarschijnlijk sprake is geweest van fraude en dat Moore daarom de uitslag aanvecht bij de rechter in Montgomery, de hoofdstad van Alabama.

quote:

Former Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore filed a lawsuit on Wednesday night contesting the outcome of the state’s special election.

According to The Associated Press, the suit was filed in Montgomery Circuit Court less than a day before the state will officially declare Moore’s opponent the winner. Moore wants the state to launch a fraud investigation and hold a new election.

quote:

In a complaint filed in the circuit court here in Alabama's capital, Mr. Moore's campaign argued that such fraud had tainted the Dec. 12 special election, which Mr. Moore lost to Doug Jones by fewer than 22,000 votes, and that the Alabama authorities had inadequately investigated claims of misconduct.

If the election is prematurely certified, Mr. Moore's lawyers wrote, he will "suffer irreparable harm" and be "denied his full right as a candidate to a fair election."

In some ways Mr. Moore's lawsuit was not a surprise. He has a demonstrated penchant for last-minute legal theatrics -- in 2015, he tried, unsuccessfully, to block same-sex marriages from moving forward hours before they were to begin -- and he and his allies have spent the last several weeks signaling their unease with this month's voting process. Indeed, while saying little else publicly, Mr. Moore has been soliciting contributions for an "election integrity fund."

Mr. Moore's court filing ran for dozens of pages, and it argued that returns in Jefferson County, the state's most populous county, "confirmed election fraud." It also said that turnout in the county was suspiciously high; it suggested that Mr. Jones had benefited from voter intimidation; and it argued that Mr. Moore's opponents had spread "lies and fraudulent misrepresentations."

Mr. Moore has spent weeks ignoring calls that he concede the election, defying the wishes of President Trump, who endorsed his campaign, and other Republican leaders.

It was not immediately clear when a judge would consider Mr. Moore's complaint or the affidavits from several people his campaign described as experts in elections; one has claimed to have "mathematically proved a conspiracy to assassinate" President John F. Kennedy.

John H. Merrill, the Alabama secretary of state, has dismissed complaints, from Democratic and Republican critics, of election fraud. In an interview on Dec. 15, Mr. Merrill, a Republican who voted for Mr. Moore, flatly declared: "I have not seen any irregularities or any inconsistencies that are outside the norm."

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 10:04 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Moore

twitter:

RealSaavedra twitterde op donderdag 28-12-2017 om 04:09:09 CNN Legal Analyst Paul Callan: "Originally, I was angered at the president's attacks on the FBI...but when I starte… https://t.co/E6a75xCOC9 reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 10:11 schreef dellipder het volgende:

twitter:

RealSaavedra twitterde op donderdag 28-12-2017 om 04:09:09 CNN Legal Analyst Paul Callan: "Originally, I was angered at the president's attacks on the FBI...but when I starte… https://t.co/E6a75xCOC9 reageer retweet

CNN's juridische analist zal hierna vermoedelijk ontslagen worden, maar dit is echt een van de weinige keren dat ze wel fair and balanced over dit onderwerp praten.
Het problematische hierbij is natuurlijk dat ik het aantal keer, dat op één hand te tellen is, een nieuwsorganisatie moet prijzen omdat ze een logische gevolgtrekking maakt van tot nog toe alle beschikbare informatie en onthullingen.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 10:16 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
Dus omdat de uitspraken in jouw straatje passen, is er plots sprake van 'fair and balanced' berichtgeving?

quote:

WASHINGTON — The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, removed a top F.B.I. agent this summer from his investigation into Russian election meddling after the Justice Department’s inspector general began examining whether the agent had sent text messages that expressed anti-Trump political views, according to three people briefed on the matter.

The agent, Peter Strzok, is considered one of the most experienced and trusted F.B.I. counterintelligence investigators. He helped lead the investigation into whether Hillary Clinton had mishandled classified information on her private email account, and then played a major role in the investigation into links between President Trump’s campaign and Russia.

But Mr. Strzok was reassigned this summer from Mr. Mueller’s investigation to the F.B.I.’s human resources department, where he has been stationed since. The people briefed on the case said the transfer followed the discovery of text messages in which Mr. Strzok and a colleague reacted to news events, like presidential debates, in ways that could appear critical of Mr. Trump.

“Immediately upon learning of the allegations, the special counsel’s office removed Peter Strzok from the investigation,” said a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, Peter Carr.

https://www.nytimes.com/2(...)nti-trump-texts.html

quote:

"The fact that Robert Mueller fired an investigator immediately when these texts came to light is evidence he's running a tight ship and lends credibility to his investigation -- not detracts from it," Lisa Gilbert, an expert on government ethics at the watchdog group Public Citizen, told me.

Furthermore, there is no reason to think that Strzok could've overridden Comey's own view of Clinton's conduct. Even if Strzok were in fact leading a partisan effort to tweak the language out of a personal desire to defend Clinton, he couldn't have done it against the will of his own boss. And Comey is famously hostile to political favoritism or chumminess with politicians.

Lawrence Noble, the general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group, says that Strzok likely made a mistake, but that his actions, based on what's publicly known so far, fall short of contaminating the entire Mueller inquiry.

"That fact that it appears Mueller removed Strzok from the investigation as soon as he find out about the messages tends to underscore Mueller's seriousness about keeping the investigation free from even the appearance of bias," Noble told me.

Gilbert says that the timing of right-wing criticism of Mueller's probe is worth noting. It's ramping up "just as the investigation begins to bear fruit."

Given how fast Mueller is moving, that means you can expect to be hearing the name Peter Strzok a lot in the weeks ahead.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 10:28 schreef dellipder het volgende:
En kijk; Jeff Session en Rod Rosenstein hebben Guantanomo Bay al geïnspecteerd.

Sessions, Rosenstein to visit Guantánamo Bay

En naar verluidt is generaal Kelly ook een groot fan ervan.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 11:00 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

En het gaat dus gewoon weer om Strozk die in ±juli uit Muellers team is gezet

[..]

zie verder ook: The new right-wing attack on the Mueller probe, explained

[..]

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 11:45 schreef Vis1980 het volgende:

[..]

Lekker mensen martellen onder de noemer 'terrorisme'.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 11:41 schreef Vis1980 het volgende:
Jemig wat een onzin wordt er soms gepost mbt wat de taak van de media is.

Niet helemaal opgelet op school of iets dergelijks.

Soms vermakelijk, soms een beetje vervelend.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 12:55 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
In dat kader mag Hannity ook wel eens zijn belofte inlossen om gewaterboard te worden. Libtard atheïstische journalist Christopher Hitchens had tenminste wel de ballen om zich daaraan te onderwerpen.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 11:45 schreef Vis1980 het volgende:

[..]

Lekker mensen martellen onder de noemer 'terrorisme'. En er dan fan van zijn?

Gaat hij zijn belofte inlossen door families van vermeende terroristen ook op te sluiten en te martellen?

Laat me raden: jij vindt het nog een goed idee ook.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 13:14 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Wat een hysterie

Waar ik het over heb is dat het pensioen van de aanklager van Guantanomo Bay met twee jaar is uitgesteld. Pentagon postpones Guantánamo prosecutor’s retirement until 2019
En dat er sinds een aantal maanden hier weer wordt gerekruteerd en vacatures worden opengesteld. Mobilization Opportunity for a LS3-LS1 in JTF-GTMO (NE-1730-0088)
En dat vrij recent nog de minister van Defensie Guantanomo Bay heeft bezocht. Let wel, sinds 2002 heeft geen enkele hoge functionaris van het Pentagon GB bezocht. Mattis is 1st Pentagon chief to visit Guantanamo since 2002
Vlak na de presidentsverkiezingen heeft Donald Trump al gesteld dat hij GB gaat vullen met 'some bad dudes'. Trump Has Vowed To Fill Guantanamo With 'Some Bad Dudes' — But Who?

En in te gaan op de vraag uit deze titel; but who?
Zou het misschien te maken kunnen hebben met de soundbite 'drain the swamp' gelet welke ontwikkelingen er zich de afgelopen laatste weken/maanden hebben afgespeeld: klik?

Denk nog maar eens aan de EO van een klein weekje geleden: Executive Order Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption

Maar om het even voor jou goed helder te maken is dit alles een gedachte-experiment op basis van vrij toegankelijke informatie.
Ik stel helemaal niet dat deze uitleg per sé zo moet zijn, maar dat men ook voorbij The Washington en Huffington Post moet kijken.
Nou ja moet; ik doe dit. Dat is mijn standaard.

Sue me...

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 13:28 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

'Drain the swamp' heeft plots te maken met het aanpakken van mensensmokkelaars? Waar heb jij het nou weer over?

quote:

Allegations that Department or FBI policies or procedures were not followed in connection
with, or in actions leading up to or related to, the FBI Director’s public announcement on
July 5, 2016, and the Director’s letters to Congress on October 28 and November 6, 2016,
and that certain underlying investigative decisions were based on improper considerations

Allegations that the FBI Deputy Director should have been recused from participating in
certain investigative matters

Allegations that the Department’s Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs
improperly disclosed non-public information to the Clinton campaign and/or should have been recused from participating in certain matters;

Allegations that Department and FBI employees improperly disclosed non-public information; and

Allegations that decisions regarding the timing of the FBI’s release of certain Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) documents on October 30 and November 1, 2016, and the use of a
Twitter account to publicize same, were influenced by improper considerations.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 13:46 schreef dellipder het volgende:
*Wazig verhaal*

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 13:57 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Heb het wel een beetje gehad met jouw hagelschot-discussies. Je haalt er van alles bij, waarna je allerlei verbanden legt en lijntjes trekt waarmee je de suggestie lijkt te wekken dat Trump een of ander complot op meesterlijke wijze aan het ontrafelen is.

De werkelijkheid is vermoedelijk veel eenvoudiger: Trump voelt zich in een hoek gedrukt, zoekt stokken om de FBI mee te slaan en grijpt daarbij werkelijk alles aan, of het nou gefundeerd is of niet.

En bepaalde media helpen hem daarbij een handje door zaken uit hun verband te rukken en op te blazen.

Als McCabe daadwerkelijk wordt aangeklaagd en veroordeeld, dan wordt het een ander verhaal. Maar daar is op dit moment allerminst sprake van.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:00 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

In de EO en zelfs in de titel daarvan staat overduidelijk serious human rights abuse or corruption, dus het was een beetje domme vraag van je.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:00 schreef Fir3fly het volgende:
Hoe vaak gaan we 'McCabe is toast' nog horen voor 2018?

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:09 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Omarosa Manigault had geprobeerd mensen het Witte Huis binnen te smokkelen voor een bruiloftsreportage, misschien bedoelen ze dat?

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:11 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Niet zo vaak aangezien hij naar verluid plant om te gaan genieten van zijn pensioen.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 13:56 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:
Als je oprecht denkt dat het mogelijk is Trump corrupte medewerkers van de overheid naar Guantanamo Bay gaat sturen ben je echt dusdanig ver van het padje af dat het koosnaampje 'lijmsnuiver' van Monolith de lading ook niet helemaal meer dekt.

Man man man man man.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:02 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

En daarmee doelt hij op corruptie die is gepleegd binnen zijn eigen overheidsinstellingen? Want dat lijkt mij nogal vreemd in combinatie met het bestrijden van mensensmokkel.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:24 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Er zijn daar eerder Amerikaanse staatsburgers ingesloten.

Judge Orders 3 USS Cole Defense Lawyers to Guantanamo After They Quit

Gitmo judge sends Marine general lawyer to 21 days confinement for disobeying orders

Nogmaals ik zeg niet dat dit zo is, maar het zou me niks verbazen als die duizenden die nu al zijn opgepakt min of meer in de luwte gehouden worden om uiteindelijk de grotere spelers in dit geheel de pas af te snijden.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:11 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Niet zo vaak aangezien hij naar verluid plant om te gaan genieten van zijn pensioen.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:26 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Je hoeft toch niks te vragen als je zelf kan lezen. Ik heb nota bene de link en een stukje tekst in een eerder bericht toegevoegd.
Mijn God je kan zelf toch ook wel iets, mag ik hopen?

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:26 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Er zijn duizenden Amerikanen opgepakt wegens corruptie?

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:27 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

In de EO staat dat het vrijwel uitsluitend om mensensmokkel en corruptie gaat die buiten de eigen landsgrenzen plaatsvindt.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:28 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Nee. Er zijn duizenden opgepakt wegens het eerste gedeelte van de EO, waarnaar ik nu al verschillende keren heb verwezen.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:26 schreef dellipder het volgende:
LOL.
Ik hoop heel erg dat dit een andere afloop gaat krijgen.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:34 schreef Belabor het volgende:

[..]

Fixed. Graag gedaan.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:24 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Er zijn daar eerder Amerikaanse staatsburgers ingesloten.

Judge Orders 3 USS Cole Defense Lawyers to Guantanamo After They Quit

quote:

MIAMI -- In a new test of the reach of the Guantanamo war court, a military judge has ordered three civilian lawyers who quit the USS Cole defense team to come to court at the remote U.S. Navy base in Cuba next week.

quote:

Gitmo judge sends Marine general lawyer to 21 days confinement for disobeying orders

quote:

with Baker confined to his quarters in a trailer park behind the courthouse

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:34 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]

Gek, ICE rept over honderden en een paar dozijn verwijzingen naar Justitie voor vervolging.

https://www.nytimes.com/2(...)-smuggling.html?_r=0

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:34 schreef Monolith het volgende:
Nog een stukje over de staat van de Amerikaanse economie:
http://politi.co/2CixjHa

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:36 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
Heeft iemand enig idee waar die dellipder het in vredesnaam over heeft?

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:38 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Sorry, maar ik geloof echt niet dat je het zo dom bent dat je immigratieproblematiek als synoniem stelt met mensenrechtenschendingen of corruptie.

Klik

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:38 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

[..]

Lol. Dit is de eerste regel van dat artikel:

[..]

Ze komen niet in de gevangenis. Ze moeten er alleen hun cliënt komen verdedigen. Heel gênant, dit.

[..]

En hahahaha, deze kerel zit niet in Guantanamo, maar:

[..]

in de caravans achter de rechtbank.

Zelfs voor jou is dit niveau van begrijpend lezen wel echt be-droe-vend laag hoor, koekoek.

quote:

The Guantanamo Bay military tribunals on Wednesday won their first conviction without a plea deal since 2008. Only it wasn't a terrorist who was convicted - it was a one-star Marine general sticking up for the rights of the accused to have a fair trial.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:52 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Ik heb de verkeerde zaken in mijn bericht gedaan (ik heb teveel tabbladen openstaan), maar er is onder Obama wel degelijk wetgeving tot stand gekomen waarmee US staatsburgers naar Guantanoma Bay gebracht kunnen worden.
Gooi ik later wel in dit bericht.

[..]

Bron

Wet of verwijzing naar de wet zoek ik ook nog op...

quote:

Who can go to Guantanamo?
As the President-elect makes the transition from campaigning to governing, the real question will soon become: who exactly is even eligible for transfer to Guantanamo?

Legal experts on both sides of the political aisle agree that Trump's options are limited in light of the congressional authority currently available to detain someone.

The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) authorizes the president to use force against those who "planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons."

Under the Bush and Obama administrations, the AUMF has been used to justify efforts against al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other associated forces (including, more controversially, ISIS).
But neither President Bush nor Obama ever sought to use the AUMF to detain someone at Guantanamo who was captured in the US.

Jonathan Hafetz -- a professor at Seton Hall Law School who has represented numerous Guantanamo prisoners in federal court -- said that is precisely what makes Trump's statements on sending American ISIS-supporters to Guantanamo so extraordinary.

"To bring anyone from the US -- citizen or not -- to Guantanamo and put them in military detention would be unprecedented," Hafetz said. "Even the Bush administration, in its most sweeping views of executive power, didn't transfer (terror suspects arrested in the US) to Guantanamo."

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:52 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Ik heb de verkeerde zaken in mijn bericht gedaan (ik heb teveel tabbladen openstaan), maar er is onder Obama wel degelijk wetgeving tot stand gekomen waarmee US staatsburgers naar Guantanoma Bay gebracht kunnen worden.
Gooi ik later wel in dit bericht.

[..]

Bron

Wet of verwijzing naar de wet zoek ik ook nog op...

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:59 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Kennelijk gaat het om deze wet uit 2001: Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists

Althans, een Google search levert dit CNN artikeltje op, waarin onder andere staat:

[..]

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:59 schreef Barbusse het volgende:
Militair personeel is juridisch gezien geen staatsburger.

Gewoon weer wat stof in de motor blijven gooien in de hoop dat hij afslaat.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 15:03 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

[..]

Het zit ergens in deze verstopt, als ik het goed heb.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 15:05 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Het is de hagelschot-discussietechniek. Gewoon maar in het wilde weg blijven schieten om er zo voor te zorgen dat het nieuws over Trump ondergesneeuwd raakt. Die tactiek hanteert FOX ook.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 15:11 schreef dellipder het volgende:
Feit blijft dat er duizenden mensen zijn opgepakt in verband met mensenrechtenschendingen enen bij de FBI top de nodige mensen die zijn opegstapt, demotie hebben gehad of zijn weggepromoveerd. De EO en het onderzoek van de OIG zijn echt. OIG rapport wordt begin januari gepresenteerd naar verluidt.
Ander feit is dat de Russia collusion delusion minder heeft opgebracht dan alles wat er omheen gebeurt. McCabe, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, Bruce Ohr, James Baker, Nellie Ohr, etc.
Guantanomo Bay is een gedachte-experiment en slechts een onderdeel wat ik hier heb gepresenteerd. Ik zal het de info over het aantal vliegbewegingen onthouden.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 15:05 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Het is de hagelschot-discussietechniek. Gewoon maar in het wilde weg blijven schieten om er zo voor te zorgen dat het nieuws over Trump ondergesneeuwd raakt. Die tactiek hanteert FOX ook.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 15:11 schreef dellipder het volgende:
Guantanomo Bay is een gedachte-experiment

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 15:11 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:
Ah, hier zal wel weer een tweet over komen :

http://edition.cnn.com/20(...)on-gallup/index.html

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 15:13 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Maak jij maar weer een berichtje over twee schepjes ijs en een Cola Light. Dit doet me helemaal niks.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 15:14 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Je bent dan ook wel een kansloos figuur als je Trump bewondert.

Noem een bewonderenswaardige eigenschap van die man.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 15:13 schreef dellipder het volgende:

[..]

Maak jij maar weer een berichtje over twee schepjes ijs en een Cola Light. Dit doet me helemaal niks.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 15:15 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Het was al eerder voorbij gekomen, maar hier nog een artikel over Moore die kennelijk niet wil geloven dat God hem een verlies gunde, ofzo: Roy Moore files lawsuit to block Alabama Senate result, seeks new election

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 15:16 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

Hij zet alleen zichzelf voor lul hiermee.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 15:41 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

En zijn partij. Dus ik hoop dat hij tot het Hooggerechtshof door blijft procederen

quote:

Trump White House Saw Record Number of First-Year Staff Departures (WSJ)
The Trump administration has been marked by a level of staff turnover unprecedented in the modern era, with a rate of first-year departures twice as high as any other presidency in the past 40 years.

President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was fired after 25 days on the job. Two high-profile campaign aides who followed him into the White House, Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon, were gone before summer’s end. And his third communications director’s tenure is still remembered around the West Wing as “Scaramucci Week.”

Those are just a few of the first-year departures from high level positions in the Trump administration, which has been marked by a level of staff turnover unprecedented in the modern era.

According to Kathryn Dunn-Tenpas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has tracked White House turnover rates over three decades, the Trump administration’s 34% turnover rate—21 of the 61 senior officials she has tracked have resigned, been fired or reassigned—is much higher than that of any other administration in the last 40 years, which is as far back as Ms. Dunn-Tenpas’s analysis goes. The presidency with the next-highest first-year turnover rate was Ronald Reagan’s , with 17% of senior aides leaving the administration in 1981.

SPOILER

“Not only is the percentage double, the seniority of people leaving is extraordinarily high,” said Ms. Dunn-Tenpas. “That’s unprecedented to me. The first year always seems to have some missteps on staffing, often because the skills that worked well running a campaign don’t always align with what it takes to run a government. In this case, it’s a president with no experience in government and people around him who also had no experience,” she continued. “So it’s not surprising that it’s higher than normal, but it’s still surprising it’s this high.”

Many inside the administration credit chief of staff John Kelly, who succeeded Mr. Priebus in July, with bringing greater stability to the West Wing.Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Mr. Trump’s first-year turnover rate is three times higher than both Barack Obama’s 9% and Bill Clinton’s 11%.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. A senior administration official, speaking to reporters last week said the turnover shouldn’t be interpreted as a series of hiring mistakes.

“Is it a mistake to have to fire people? You’re asking, did he make a mistake in hiring them in the first place? You have to be more specific about people,” the senior administration official responded. “I know we love to learn the more generic points of palace intrigue than the finer points of policy sometimes, but we have a really good team here. And we have a team that is very well managed by the chief of staff.”

Many inside the administration credit chief of staff John Kelly, who succeeded Mr. Priebus in July, with bringing greater stability to the West Wing. The communications department, initially a main source of agitation for Mr. Trump, has also stabilized with adviser Hope Hicks, the fourth White House communications director to hold the position this year after Anthony Scaramucci’s firing. Mr. Kelly’s housecleaning continued with Mr. Bannon’s ouster.

Mr. Kelly’s appointment as chief of staff left a vacancy at the Department of Homeland Security, which he was appointed to lead in January. His six-month tenure there is the shortest in the agency’s history. He was succeeded by his deputy, Kirstjen Nielsen, who was confirmed earlier this month.

Still, the personnel churn “is really destabilizing to the institution,” Ms. Dunn-Tenpas said. “Every time there’s turnover, they’ve got to hire someone new and spend time training them. And when you pull someone from one important position to another, there’s this domino effect.”

Anthony Scaramucci was fired as communications director after about a week on the job.Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press

As an antiestablishment outsider, Mr. Trump has continued to rely on a small circle of advisers—as he did during his campaign—placing a high priority on loyalty and leaving hundreds of other top jobs across the federal government vacant as part of his stated effort to reduce the size of government.

During the transition, Mr. Trump mostly avoided hiring Republicans who had been critical of him or who worked for organizations opposing him during the campaign. Many experienced Washington hands who could have applied for positions stayed away.

“It’s hard getting beyond that inner circle because of his lack of trust with people he doesn’t know,” said one high-level GOP ally who worked on the presidential transition. “But it’s also been the case that he makes snap decisions and winds up with people who are not great fits.”

Mr. Trump ignored multiple warnings not to hire Mr. Flynn as national security adviser from President Obama, his initial transition chief Gov. Chris Christie and others. Ultimately, Mr. Flynn’s firing in February for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Russian officials and the eventual ouster of his deputy, K.T. McFarland, prompted additional turnover on the National Security Council as H.R. McMaster took charge.

Mr. Trump at times has filled vacancies by hiring from within his small group of trusted advisers. Mick Mulvaney, executive director of the Office of Management and Budget, is currently overseeing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as interim director after its past director’s resignation last month.

Another factor in the fluid personnel situation is special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential campaign, which is likely to extend into 2018. The president has called the investigation a “witch hunt” and Moscow has denied inferring in the election; the U.S. intelligence community in January 2017 concluded that Russia had meddled in the campaign.

If history is any guide, turnover will be even higher in the second year. According to Ms. Dunn-Tenpas’s research, Mr. Reagan’s turnover jumped from 17% in 1981 to 40% in 1982. Mr. Clinton lost 27% of his key advisers in year two and President George W. Bush, who lost just 6% of senior aides in a first year, saw 27% of them leave the following year.

Deputy national security adviser Dina Powell and deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn both announced this month that they plan to depart early next year as the administration hits the one-year mark; Omarosa Manigault Newman, an adviser to the president, also resigned effective Jan. 20, although the terms of her departure are less clear.

“Every chief executive has his or her own style, as does President Trump,” said Jim Wolbarsht, a Republican who has held appointed positions in five administrations and been a member of multiple federal advisory boards. “He seems to rely a lot less on existing institutions and structures than previous presidents.”

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 14:34 schreef Monolith het volgende:
Nog een stukje over de staat van de Amerikaanse economie:
http://politi.co/2CixjHa

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 16:17 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Wat op zich wel aan te voelen was is kennelijk ook becijferd. Historisch hoog verloop in het witte huis dit jaar. Volgens hen is het verloop in het 2e jaar normaal gesproken aanzienlijk hoger dan het 1e jaar, dus dat belooft wat...

[..]

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 28-12-2017 om 20:20:47 I've been saying it for a long, long time. #NoKo https://t.co/LQl7tGhMdO reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 16:39 schreef Knipoogje het volgende:

[..]

Ben bang dat het hem nog lukt ook. Over enkele maanden heeft niemand het meer over 'thanks Obama' en heeft de GOP & Trump zo veel en zo vaak geroepen dat zij de al zeer goed draaiende economie ontzettende puinzooi van Obama hebben veranderd in een paradijselijke groei dat het zelfs blijft hangen bij trumphaters.

quote:

A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to implement an Obama-era rule on Jan. 1 that would give low-income families greater access to housing in more affluent neighborhoods.

The 2016 rule was designed to break up areas of concentrated poverty in two dozen metro regions, from Atlanta and Charlotte to San Diego and Honolulu.

It would operate by taking into account the rental prices in specific neighborhoods — instead of averaging across an entire metropolitan area — making it easier for poor people to afford apartments in middle-class neighborhoods with better schools, lower crime rates and more job opportunities.

Under the current system, families receiving public rental assistance have been concentrated in deeply segregated, high-poverty communities.

SPOILER

A coalition of civil rights organizations sued the Trump administration in October after HUD Secretary Ben Carson announced that the agency would delay implementing the rule by nearly two years to allow the new administration time to fully understand its effects. Housing industry groups, including the National Association of Home Builders, lobbied against the rule, arguing that it would lead to disinvestment in inner city neighborhoods.

Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by President Barack Obama, ruled on Dec. 23 that HUD’s decision to delay implementing the rule was “arbitrary and capricious.” She said the agency failed to show sufficient reason for a pause, and that a delay would irreparably harm the plaintiffs: a Hartford, Conn., mother of five and a Chicago mother trying to move their families to safer suburban communities.

“It’s long overdue that our federal government remedy the massive disparities in wealth and education its policies continue to produce, and modest rules like this one play an integral role in leveling the playing field for blacks, Latinos, and low-income Americans,” Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said in a statement.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund was among the half-dozen groups that challenged HUD’s efforts to delay the rule. “Suspending this rule was yet another attack by this administration on communities of color,” Ifill said. “By restoring the prior rule, this injunction is a key step toward expanding equal opportunity in all aspects of American life.”

A spokesman for HUD declined to comment this week on Howell’s decision. In an August blog post, the agency said it was trying to give local public housing agencies more time to prepare before it mandated the changes.

More than 200,000 families in two dozen communities will now have greater choices about where to live, said Philip Tegeler, president and executive director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, which was also part of the lawsuit.

“This represents a new opportunity for tens of thousands of families with housing vouchers,” Tegeler said. “It’s about the right to choose where to live and the right not to be segregated. Good housing policy does not confine families to high poverty neighborhoods.”

Families with incomes low enough to receive Section 8 vouchers have little say over where to live because it is generally left up to individual landlords whether to accept the housing vouchers. And those vouchers are often too low to cover rent in more affluent neighborhoods, relegating families to clusters of apartments in poor, highly segregated areas.

The new rule addressing that problem was issued in November 2016 by then-HUD Secretary Julián Castro after years of study and public debate.

Housing agencies in 23 metro areas will now be required to adopt “small area fair market rents,” which tie voucher subsidies to specific Zip codes. It would, in essence, redistribute the value of Section 8 rental vouchers, providing higher government subsidies for apartments in more expensive communities and lower subsidies for units in poor neighborhoods.

Such a rule was first rolled out in Dallas in 2010 as part of a fair housing settlement. Since then, pilot programs have been instituted in Chattanooga, Tenn.; Laredo, Tex.; Long Beach, Calif.; Cook County, Ill.; and Mamaroneck, N.Y.

Studies have shown that moving low-income families into wealthier communities results in better lives for their children, who are eventually more likely to attend college, earn more money, and reside in better neighborhoods as adults.

But Carson has dismissed other government interventions to desegregate communities as “social engineering.”

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 16:39 schreef Knipoogje het volgende:
Over enkele maanden heeft niemand het meer over 'thanks Obama'

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 20:24 schreef westwoodblvd het volgende:

[..]

Zelfs als Trump succesvol de economische groei weet te claimen, moet hij het publiek er ook nog van overtuigen dat zijn fiscale maatregelen ze goed doen. Als dat niet lukt, haalt het zijn economische argument onderuit: als het zo goed gaat met de economie, waarom mogen daar dan alleen rijken van profiteren?

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 22:00 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Waarom is huisvesting eigenlijk een federale taak? Zou toch prima op staatsniveau of zelfs nog lokaler opgepakt kunnen worden?

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 22:47 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Nou ja, het is hier ook wel deels een nationale taak als je kijkt naar de wet- en regelgeving omtrent sociale huur bijvoorbeeld middels de Woningwet.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 22:55 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Bedoel je met de Woningwet, de wet die we hier in Nederland hebben? Dat is denk ik niet echt vergelijkbaar. Montana is geen New York en ik kan me inbeelden dat ze daar andere prioriteiten of wensen hebben. Ik zit het te vergelijken met wat ik zou vinden van wat de taak van bv. de EU zou kunnen zijn in mijn ogen .. en die zie ik niet bijzonder groot als het hierop neerkomt.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 23:02 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Het vergelijk EU - VS gaat ook niet helemaal op. De woonbehoefte is hier in Nederland toch ook wel aardig verschillend als je kijkt naar bijvoorbeeld Amsterdam en Oost-Groningen.
Er is ook best wat gedelegeerd naar lagere niveaus, maar het hele systeem met corporaties is landelijk geregeld.
In de VS is er overigens ook genoeg gedelegeerd naar lagere niveaus. Zo plempen ze bijvoorbeeld in Texas gebieden vol op plekken waar je in Nederland überhaupt nooit zou mogen bouwen.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 22:37 schreef Knipoogje het volgende:

[..]

Niet voor niets dat tijdelijk de middenklassers ook een tax cut krijgen. Dan voelen zij dat op de korte termijn ook in hun portemonnee. Daarna wordt het pas weer ingetrokken (waarschijnlijk door een democraat die moet puinruimen)

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 20:24 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 28-12-2017 om 20:20:47 I've been saying it for a long, long time. #NoKo https://t.co/LQl7tGhMdO reageer retweet

Een I told you so van de POTUS en gelijk heeft ie.

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 20:00 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Rechter heeft het verzoek van Moore om uit te stellen zoals verwacht afgewezen: https://apnews.com/0cac14b238da45e0942d039dbe01ded6

En zijn mensen zijn gaan dreigen (volgens mij is dit nog van voordat de rechter het afwees): Moore camp warns of consequences if Jones is certified as Alabama winner

WATCH: Alabama secy. of state certifies Doug Jones' special election victory

quote:

Op donderdag 28 december 2017 23:30 schreef Stefanovich het volgende:

[..]

Jij lijkt net zo'n twitterbot die praise en halleluja roepen op elke tweet van die waslap. Rot eens op man. Of zijn users als Nintex en redpilled echt pro trump bots? Zal er niet raar van op kijken.

twitter:

nycsouthpaw twitterde op donderdag 28-12-2017 om 19:21:55 Team Trump’s obsession with his predecessor and primary opponent has soaked in all the way to the error page html. https://action.donaldjtrump.com/inaugural-year-approval-poll/ … via reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 00:21 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]

Lol, dismissed with prejudice. "Deze rechtbank heeft geen standing en flikker een end op."

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 00:35 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Dat staat best raar maar is blijkbaar toch heel normaal

Dismissed With Prejudice Law and Legal Definition

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 01:12 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Dit zal jou trouwens denk ik wel aanspreken: Minnesotans Don’t Think Franken Should Resign; Franken Remains Popular, Especially With Women

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 01:17 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]



Maar ik denk dat het nooit meer wat gaat worden

Eén of ander panel op Radio 1 noemde trouwens Gillibrand als goede kandidaat

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 00:13 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
De obsessie met mensen buiten dienst is wel grandioos he:

twitter:

nycsouthpaw twitterde op donderdag 28-12-2017 om 19:21:55 Team Trump’s obsession with his predecessor and primary opponent has soaked in all the way to the error page html. https://action.donaldjtrump.com/inaugural-year-approval-poll/ … via[ afbeelding ] reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 01:30 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Dit noem je branding.

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 01:17 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 01:34 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Een week of 2 geleden werd mij hier verweten "de enige te zijn die het voor Franken opnam" (terwijl ik juist het idee had dat ik zo neutraal mogelijk probeerde te blijven & op de onderzoekscommissie wilde wachten, maar het ook niet kon helpen dat Tweeden + Gillibrand + enige meelopers kilo's boter op hun hoofd hadden)... jammer dat jij er toen niet was, ik was nogal alleen.

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 01:40 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Jij was er volgens mij ook niet.

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 01:34 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Een week of 2 geleden was ik hier volgens iemand "de enige die het voor Franken opnam" (terwijl ik juist het idee had dat ik zo neutraal mogelijk probeerde te blijven & op de onderzoekscommissie wilde wachten, maar het ook niet kon helpen dat Tweeden + Gillibrand + enige meelopers kilo's boter op hun hoofd hadden)... jammer dat jij er toen niet was, ik was nogal alleen.

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 01:43 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Ik was er wel hoor maar het was toen nog vrij recent na de eerste beschuldiging

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 01:40 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Gaat het wel goed met je?

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 01:51 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Het was later nog een keer, maar toen was jij er niet. (Vandaar dat je het niet weet denk ik )

[..]

Nee. Ik had een paar dagen helemaal geen zin om te posten.

(En er zijn privé ook wat dingen misgegaan vandaag dus heb vandaag ook geen zin. )

quote:

Trump Says Russia Inquiry Makes U.S. ‘Look Very Bad’

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump said Thursday that he believes Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel in the Russia investigation, will treat him fairly, contradicting some members of his party who have waged a weekslong campaign to try to discredit Mr. Mueller and the continuing inquiry.

During an impromptu 30-minute interview with The New York Times at his golf club in West Palm Beach, the president did not demand an end to the Russia investigations swirling around his administration, but insisted 16 times that there has been “no collusion” discovered by the inquiry.

“It makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position,” Mr. Trump said of the investigation. “So the sooner it’s worked out, the better it is for the country.”

Asked whether he would order the Justice Department to reopen the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, Mr. Trump appeared to remain focused on the Russia investigation.

“I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department,” he said, echoing claims by his supporters that as president he has the power to open or end an investigation. “But for purposes of hopefully thinking I’m going to be treated fairly, I’ve stayed uninvolved with this particular matter.”

SPOILER

Hours after he accused the Chinese of secretly shipping oil to North Korea, Mr. Trump explicitly said for the first time that he has “been soft” on China on trade in the hopes that its leaders will pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

He hinted that his patience may soon end, however, signaling his frustration with the reported oil shipments.

“Oil is going into North Korea. That wasn’t my deal!” he exclaimed, raising the possibility of aggressive trade actions against China. “If they don’t help us with North Korea, then I do what I’ve always said I want to do.”

Despite saying that when he visited China in November, President Xi Jinping “treated me better than anybody’s ever been treated in the history of China,” Mr. Trump said that “they have to help us much more.”

“We have a nuclear menace out there, which is no good for China,” he said.

Mr. Trump gave the interview in the Grill Room at Trump International Golf Club after he ate lunch with his playing partners, including his son Eric and the pro golfer Jim Herman. No aides were present for the interview, and the president sat alone with a New York Times reporter at a large round table as club members chatted and ate lunch nearby. A few times, members and friends — including a longtime supporter, Christopher Ruddy, the president and chief executive of the conservative website and TV company Newsmax — came by to speak with Mr. Trump.

Noting that he had given Mr. Herman $50,000 years ago when he worked at the president’s New Jersey golf club and was trying to make the PGA Tour, Mr. Trump asked him how much he made playing on the professional circuit.

“It’s like $3 million,” Mr. Herman said.

“Which to him is like making a billion because he doesn’t spend anything,” Mr. Trump joked. “Ain’t that a great story?”

In the interview, the president touted the strength of his campaign victories and his accomplishments in office, including passage of a tax overhaul this month. But he also expressed frustration and anger at Democrats, who he said refused to negotiate on legislation.

“Like Joe Manchin,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the Democratic senator from West Virginia. He said Mr. Manchin and other Democrats claimed to be centrists but refused to negotiate on health care or taxes.

“He talks. But he doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t do,” Mr. Trump said. “‘Hey, let’s get together, let’s do bipartisan.’ I say, ‘Good, let’s go.’ Then you don’t hear from him again.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Trump said he still hoped Democrats will work with him on bipartisan legislation in the coming year to overhaul health care, improve the country’s crumbling infrastructure and help young immigrants brought to the country as children.

Mr. Trump disputed reports that suggested he does not have a detailed understanding of legislation, saying, “I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A. I know the details of health care better than most, better than most.”

Later, he added that he knows more about “the big bills” debated in the Congress “than any president that’s ever been in office.”

The president also spoke at length about the special election this month in Alabama, where Roy S. Moore, the Republican candidate, lost to a Democrat after being accused of sexual misconduct with young girls, including a minor, when he was in his 30s.

Mr. Trump said that he supported Mr. Moore’s opponent in the Republican primary race because he knew Mr. Moore would lose in the general election. And he insisted that he endorsed Mr. Moore later only because “I feel that I have to endorse Republicans as the head of the party.”

Mr. Mueller’s investigation appears to be moving ahead despite predictions by Mr. Trump’s lawyers this year that it would be over by Thanksgiving. Mr. Trump said that he was not bothered by the fact that he does not know when it will be completed because he has nothing to hide.

Mr. Trump repeated his assertion that Democrats invented the Russia allegations “as a hoax, as a ruse, as an excuse for losing an election.” He said that “everybody knows” his associates did not collude with the Russians, even as he insisted that the “real stories” are about Democrats who worked with Russians during the 2016 campaign.

“There’s been no collusion. But I think he’s going to be fair,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Mueller.

In recent weeks, Republican lawmakers have seized on anti-Trump texts sent by an F.B.I. investigator who was removed from Mr. Mueller’s team as evidence of political bias. At a hearing this month, Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, said that “the public trust in this whole thing is gone.”

Although Mr. Trump said he believes Mr. Mueller will treat him fairly, Mr. Trump raised questions about how the special counsel had dealt with the lobbyist Tony Podesta. Mr. Podesta is the brother of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, and Tony Podesta is under investigation for work his firm, the Podesta Group, did on behalf of a client referred to it in 2012 by Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman.

“Whatever happened to Podesta?” Mr. Trump said. “They closed their firm, they left in disgrace, the whole thing, and now you never heard of anything.”

Mr. Trump tried to put distance between himself and Mr. Manafort, who was indicted in October. The president said that Mr. Manafort — whom he called “very nice man” and “an honorable person” — had spent more time working for other candidates and presidents than for him.

“Paul only worked for me for a few months,” Mr. Trump said. “Paul worked for Ronald Reagan. His firm worked for John McCain, worked for Bob Dole, worked for many Republicans for far longer than he worked for me. And you’re talking about what Paul was many years ago before I ever heard of him. He worked for me for — what was it, three and a half months?”

Mr. Trump said it was “too bad” that Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, recused himself from overseeing the Russia investigation. Mr. Trump did not directly answer a question about whether he thought that Eric H. Holder Jr., President Barack Obama’s first attorney general, was more loyal than Mr. Sessions had been.

“I don’t want to get into loyalty, but I will tell you that, I will say this: Holder protected President Obama. Totally protected him,” Mr. Trump said. He added: “When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the president. And I have great respect for that, I’ll be honest.”

Mr. Trump said he believes members of the news media will eventually cover him more favorably because they are profiting from the interest in his presidency and thus will want him re-elected.

“Another reason that we’re going to win another four years is because newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes,” Mr. Trump said, then invoked one of his preferred insults. “Without me, The New York Times will indeed be, not the failing New York Times, but the failed New York Times.”

He added: “So they basically have to let me win. And eventually, probably six months before the election, they’ll be loving me because they’re saying, ‘Please, please, don’t lose Donald Trump.’ O.K.”

After the interview, Mr. Trump walked out of the Grill Room, stopping briefly to speak to guests. He then showed off a plaque that listed the club’s golf champions, including several years in which Mr. Trump had won its annual tournament. Asked how far he was hitting balls off the tee these days, Mr. Trump, who will turn 72 next year, was modest. “Gets shorter every year,” he said.

quote:

Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 02:07 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Ok, en nu weer naar de realiteit van een volstrekte idioot als US president hebben: Trump: US could use some ‘good old Global Warming’ to heat up cold states

Het is denk ik overigens wel een geluk bij een ongeluk dat de VS een van de staten is die an sich veel te verliezen heeft hierbij.

quote:

Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 05:36 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Hij kent het begrip 'winter' niet?

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 29-12-2017 om 01:01:47 In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old G… https://t.co/tCjF8xdXep reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 01:30 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Dit noem je branding.

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is poised to roll back offshore drilling safety regulations that were put in place after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people and caused the worst oil spill in American history.

A proposal by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which was established after the spill and regulates offshore oil and gas drilling, calls for reversing the Obama-era regulations as part of President Trump’s efforts to ease restrictions on fossil fuel companies and generate more domestic energy production.

Doing so, the agency asserted, will reduce “unnecessary burdens” on the energy industry and save the industry $228 million over 10 years.

“This proposed rule would fortify the Administration’s objective of facilitating energy dominance” by encouraging increased domestic oil and gas production, even as it strengthens safety and environmental protection, the proposal says.

SPOILER

In April Mr. Trump signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to “reconsider” several oil rig safety regulations. Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, at the time did not specify which specific equipment regulations would be reviewed, saying only the review would apply “from bow to stern.”

The agency will officially publish its proposed rule in the Federal Register on Friday and give the public 30 days to comment on the plan.

“By reducing the regulatory burden on industry, we are encouraging increased domestic oil and gas production while maintaining a high bar for safety and environmental sustainability,” Scott A. Angelle, director of the safety bureau, said in a statement.

The National Ocean Industries Association, which also represents domestic offshore energy firms, welcomed the move.

“The proposed revisions to the Production Safety Systems Rule mark an integral step in the regulatory reform promised by President Trump,” Randall Luthi, the group’s president, said in comments released on Thursday. “This ‘second bite at the apple’ provides an opportunity for further dialogue, discussion and debate to assure the nation’s offshore energy resources are developed safely and expeditiously,” Mr. Luthi said.

The Obama-era rules, written in 2016, tightened controls on blowout preventers, devices that are intended to stop explosions in undersea oil and gas wells, and called for rig operators to have third parties certify that the safety devices worked under extreme conditions. In the Deepwater Horizon spill, a supposedly fail-safe blowout preventer failed after a section of drill pipe buckled.

Nearly one million coastal and offshore seabirds are estimated to have died in the spill, which spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the sea. The accident led to the largest environmental settlement in the nation’s history, with the oil giant BP agreeing to pay $18.7 billion in civil penalties and damages to the federal government and affected states.

Environmental groups warned that reversing the safety measures would make the United States vulnerable to another such disaster.

“Rolling back drilling safety standards while expanding offshore leasing is a recipe for disaster,” Miyoko Sakashita, director of the oceans program at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “By tossing aside the lessons from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Trump is putting our coasts and wildlife at risk of more deadly oil spills. Reversing offshore safety rules isn’t just deregulation, it’s willful ignorance.”

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 08:10 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:
Wel goed nieuws voor de Fok!kers die in het bezit zijn van een boorplatform! Alle vervelende regels, zoals een onafhankelijke veiligheidsinspectie in plaats van dat je jezelf mag keuren, gaan hopelijk binnenkort overboord.

[..]

Kan vast geen kwaad.

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 08:10 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:
Wel goed nieuws voor de Fok!kers die in het bezit zijn van een boorplatform! Alle vervelende regels, zoals een onafhankelijke veiligheidsinspectie in plaats van dat je jezelf mag keuren, gaan hopelijk binnenkort overboord.

[..]

Kan vast geen kwaad.

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 03:33 schreef OMG het volgende:
Een impromptu interview met z'n favoriete medium, de failing NYT;

[..]

Zulk achterlijke uitspraken heeft zelfs Nixon niet gedaan. En meneer weet natuurlijk alles over gezondheidszorg als geen ander. .

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 01:43 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

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Ik was er wel hoor maar het was toen nog vrij recent na de eerste beschuldiging en dan wacht ik liever eerst even de ontwikkelingen af. Komen er meer vrouwen naar voren of blijft het bij die vage beschuldiging. Tenslotte ken ik de beste man verder ook niet. Maar onderhand kan je toch wel aannemen dat het allemaal een storm in een glas water was wat betreft Franken. Doodzonde dat zo'n vrouw zijn kans op het presidentschap eventjes torpedeert. Dat moet ze toch geweten hebben?

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 09:20 schreef Q. het volgende:

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En hij komt er mee weg hè? Omdat het Congress compleet spineless is. Trump is wel de ultieme belichaming van het failliet van de USA.

quote:

Trump stuurt kwart minder Mexicanen terug dan vorig jaar

De Amerikaanse president Donald Trump heeft dit jaar een kwart minder Mexicanen uitgezet dan zijn voorganger Barack Obama.
Dat blijkt uit gegevens van het Mexicaanse ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken. De cijfers zijn opmerkelijk gezien Trumps felle anti-immigratiestandpunt.

Tijdens zijn campagne als presidentskandidaat zei hij bijvoorbeeld over Mexicanen: ''Ze zijn niet onze vrienden, geloof me. Ze brengen drugs mee. Ze brengen misdaad mee. Het zijn verkrachters. En een paar, neem ik aan, zijn goede mensen."

Bij zijn aantreden beloofde hij ''miljoenen" illegale immigranten te zullen terugsturen en werk te maken van een muur die de instroom van Mexicanen zou moeten tegengaan.

Uit de Mexicaanse cijfers blijkt dat tussen januari en november 152.000 Mexicanen door de VS zijn teruggestuurd. Het jaar ervoor, toen Obama nog aan de macht was, waren dat er 205.000 in dezelfde periode.

De Amerikaanse immigratiedienst (ICE) houdt de cijfers bij van het aantal immigranten dat de VS wordt uitgezet. Onduidelijk is hoeveel immigranten daadwerkelijk de Amerikaanse grens passeren, maar in de tellingen van het aantal immigranten niet worden meegenomen, doordat ze zich bijvoorbeeld niet inschrijven.

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 05:36 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Hij kent het begrip 'winter' niet?

quote:

The Trump Organization Says It's 'Not Practical' to Comply With the Emoluments Clause

Days before taking office, Donald Trump said his company would donate all profits from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury, part of an effort to avoid even the appearance of a conflict with the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

Now, however, the Trump Organization is telling Congress that determining exactly how much of its profits come from foreign governments is simply more trouble than it’s worth.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 29-12-2017 om 00:14:21 Together, we are MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! https://t.co/OeyTdFyl1Q https://t.co/wdLQkfdy4m reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 09:31 schreef Euribob het volgende:
denk alleen dat ze met deze actie veel bruggen heeft verbrand dus of dit netto gezien nu zo'n positieve actie was..

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 09:45 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Meestal kennen ze dát nou juist wel:
[ afbeelding ]

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 11:10 schreef BlackLining het volgende:

[..]

Fox Noise

Ach ja. Het is inderdaad diep triest dat de machtigste man op aarde het verschil tussen klimaat en weer niet weet

Overigens wel enigszins onverwacht. Na het terugtrekken uit Parijs zag je hier en daar toch wat voorzichtig terugkrabbelen.

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 11:14 schreef Vis1980 het volgende:

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Het gaat erom dat zijn achterban gepleased moet worden. Het valt mij nog steeds mee dat hij niet beweert dat de aarde plat is. Er zijn aardig wat Trumpfans die, naast chemicaliën die dagelijks in de lucht worden geblazen door vliegtuigen, geloven in een platte aarde. Die mensen houden niet zo van wetenschappelijke bewijzen en nadenken.

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False claims retracted!

Throughout history, hundreds of absurd fables have been circulated regarding the moon. Most of these have since been discarded. For example, people used to speak about there being "a man in the moon", or about moon being made out of cheese (as recently as last year, I saw an animated film that was still promoting this latter absurdity). We rarely hear such things spoken of anymore. These fables, once asserted as true by the proponents of the moon hoax, were quietly discarded once proven absurd by revisionists. What does this tell us about the equally absurd assertions that are still being made about the moon? How can we believe anything that the Astronomically Correct establishment tells us, when they have been so obviously shown themselves prone to such intellectual dishonesty in the past? The fact that the story has exhibited such enormous variability over the years should automatically be a cause for doubt.
No one speaks anymore of Richard A. Locke, a newspaper reporter who wrote a fantastic but wholly fabricated account of discoveries on the moon falsely attributed to the English astronomer Sir John Herschel. Locke reported that Herschel, using a telescope 24 feet in diameter (!), saw fabulous bat-like creatures, living in elaborate cities on the lunar surface. No less a newspaper than the New York Sun printed these reports on its front page as its most important news story! The whole moon hoax is based on such fanciful tales. That's why I doubt most of it.

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 11:18 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Dit is mijn favoriete.

http://www.revisionism.nl/Moon/The-Mad-Revisionist.htm

[..]

Misschien kunnen we Trump wijsmaken dat de maan een idee van HRC, Obama en de MSM is?

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Voor 1850 is er geen foto gemaakt van de maan

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 11:26 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
En bewijs maar eens dat er vóór 1709 echte temperaturen op aarde waren! Kun je niet he?

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 11:23 schreef Vis1980 het volgende:

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Een van de argumenten:

[..]

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 11:37 schreef Eyjafjallajoekull het volgende:

[..]

LOL! Maar net zoals bij die flat earthers is maar een klein deel echt een 'believer'. De rest zit vaak gewoon te kijken tot hoever ze kunnen gaan in hun getrol.

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 09:31 schreef Euribob het volgende:

[..]

Gillibrand heeft volgens mij gewoon geprobeerd haar concurrentie voor het presidentschap uit de weg te ruimen, denk alleen dat ze met deze actie veel bruggen heeft verbrand dus of dit netto gezien nu zo'n positieve actie was..

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 11:59 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Ze worden allemaal controversieel gemaakt door Fox & FSB-friends.

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 12:58 schreef Nintex het volgende:
The Rock en/of Zuckerberg willen het in 2020 opnemen tegen Trump.
Zuckerberg gaat het niet worden. Om president te kunnen worden moet je immers in de WWE hall of fame gestaan hebben.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson on Whether He Will Run for President

TRUMP VS. THE ROCK
ELECTION BRAWL

"Trump is so stupid, he doesn't believe in climate change"

"Dwayne is such an idiot. Dumb as a rock, second he wants to raise your taxes but he can't even spell the word. He got hit on the head too many times at the WWE. believe me"

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 13:05 schreef Vis1980 het volgende:

[..]

Even een vraag. Vind je het leuk om te trollen of ben jij echt een serieuze Trump fan?

quote:

Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 11:59 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Ze worden allemaal controversieel gemaakt door Fox & FSB-friends.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 29-12-2017 om 13:46:23 While the Fake News loves to talk about my so-called low approval rating, @foxandfriends just showed that my rating… https://t.co/u3cMWTck6M reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 13:53 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Rasmussen heeft weer een poll gedaan. Trump kan dus met een goed gevoel het nieuwe jaar in, althans, hij lijkt blij te zijn met een 46-53 stand bij hen.

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 14:11 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Echt veel doet het niet met het gemiddelde, dat is eigenlijk al tijden dramatisch:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 16:18 schreef SaintOfKillers het volgende:
Vandaag op twitter ook weer wat afgeven op Amazon omdat hij het niet kan verkroppen dat Bezos zo'n 30 keer rijker is dan Donnie zelf. Kleine beetje aandoenlijk eigenlijk.

quote:

Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 14:14 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ja, uiteraard, maar hij kiest ervoor om dat niet te zien. Net als het republikeinse propaganda-apparaat daar klaarblijkelijk voor kiest. Hier bv. Daily Caller: Trump Approval Rating On Par With Obama’s After One Year In White House. Kijken naar het grotere geheel is niet hun ding, althans, als de boodschap daarvan niet aanstaat.

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 14:14 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ja, uiteraard, maar hij kiest ervoor om dat niet te zien. Net als het republikeinse propaganda-apparaat daar klaarblijkelijk voor kiest. Hier bv. Daily Caller: Trump Approval Rating On Par With Obama’s After One Year In White House. Kijken naar het grotere geheel is niet hun ding, althans, als de boodschap daarvan niet aanstaat.

quote:

Kudos to Mr. Schmidt for getting through the interview. Must be hard not to laugh and have your drink come out your nose. - Mary, NYC

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 18:15 schreef TheVulture het volgende:
-40 in de VS jongens, dus hoezo Global Warming volgens Donald

Wat een ongelofelijke mongool

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 18:20 schreef Tchock het volgende:

[..]

[ afbeelding ]

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 18:20 schreef Tchock het volgende:

[..]

[ afbeelding ]

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Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 18:20 schreef Tchock het volgende:

[..]

[ afbeelding ]

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"He says, ‘Go ahead, I work in the private sector.' He laughs at me and then he does it again, extra hard this time, just to show me that he wasn’t afraid. At that point I was so paralyzed by fear. I was very shocked, and my friend grabbed me and pulled me away from him."

quote:

Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 13:53 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Rasmussen heeft weer een poll gedaan. Trump kan dus met een goed gevoel het nieuwe jaar in, althans, hij lijkt blij te zijn met een 46-53 stand bij hen.

quote:

Op vrijdag 29 december 2017 20:08 schreef Monolith het volgende:
Nog wel een aardig stukje over de effecten van de crisis en het verdwijnen van de 'middenklasse banen':
http://theatln.tc/2lqtt6V