American Politics thread: No Nazis Allowed
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This is the story about him taking smack about the party of the US's first black President on the anniversary of the assassination of one of the country's most prominent civil rights figures, right?
Semi-related, holy shit about that article on Trump berating that caravan of immigrants as "rapists" again. He literally broke away from a conversation about taxes to mention this. This scenario is like every stand up routine featuring a racist grandpa ever told, except it's our President. Worse yet, he's still talking about the wall as if it's being built, and he's still ignorant of the laws of immigration. I really hope people are catching onto how worthless his words are.
Back on topic, I'd take Bernie over Trump any day…but that's not much of a standard. I've considered just about every alternative to that race except for Ted Cruz because of obvious reasons. I'm thankful that there does seem to be a "good" lineup of potential candidates come 2020, and hopefully that holds up.
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Back on topic, I'd take Bernie over Trump any day…but that's not much of a standard. I've considered just about every alternative to that race except for Ted Cruz because of obvious reasons. I'm thankful that there does seem to be a "good" lineup of potential candidates come 2020, and hopefully that holds up.
I'm in total agreement. Cruz is the one other than Trump I'd never have voted for since everything I'd heard about him said "zealot", and that's not someone you want in power.
I've also said, hold to and, by this point, feel utterly justified in saying that there was never a skeleton in Hillary Clinton's closet, real or imagined, that made Trump look like a sane choice.
By this point Trump is everything anyone ever accused Clinton of being.
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Much as I supported Bernie, the bastard is too old.
Wordplay on the tired and delusional Bernie would've won meme. I actually don't want Bernie running.
I'm in total agreement. Cruz is the one other than Trump I'd never have voted for since everything I'd heard about him said "zealot", and that's not someone you want in power.
Especially since he will neither confirm or deny under questioning whether he's human or not.
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Trump signs memo ending 'catch and release' immigration policy
U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Friday ordering the end of a policy, known as “catch and release,” in which illegal immigrants are released from detention while awaiting a court hearing on their status.
As part of the memo, Trump asked Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to produce a list of military facilities that could be used to detain illegal immigrants.
Trump is making policy based on Fox News again. I'm pretty sure this breaks the 8th amendment, right?
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Trump signs memo ending 'catch and release' immigration policy
Trump is making policy based on Fox News again. I'm pretty sure this breaks the 8th amendment, right?
I highly doubt that Trump cares one way or another if it breaks the Eighth Amendment.
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I highly doubt that Trump cares one way or another if it breaks the Eighth Amendment.
Sure, but the courts, facilities, etc. do. There's a reason Trump just can't use an executive order to block all immigration outside countries in Europe.
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As long as the GOP keep deflecting and apologizing for him he has nobody to answer to.
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As long as the GOP keep deflecting and apologizing for him he has nobody to answer to.
What part of "the courts" don't you get Occasional Thread Eeyore.
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The upper floors of Trump Tower (of which I feel obligated to point have higher numbers than the building actually has stories and not in the usual "We skipped the thirteenth floor" sense but about ten more than it actually has) don't have sprinkler systems despite being a commercial building; it was apparently grandfathered in.
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Mar a Lago apparently doesn't have sufficient fire prevention measures either.
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[qimg]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaOwNYfXkAAuBwu.jpg[/qimg]
The upper floors of Trump Tower (of which I feel obligated to point have higher numbers than the building actually has stories and not in the usual "We skipped the thirteenth floor" sense but about ten more than it actually has) don't have sprinkler systems despite being a commercial building; it was apparently grandfathered in.
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Mar a Lago apparently doesn't have sufficient fire prevention measures either.
This is a good find, with shocking points in relation to the neglect of Trump's construction quality, and yet I was surprised at no point. "Well built building" indeed, said the con man.
Sure, but the courts, facilities, etc. do. There's a reason Trump just can't use an executive order to block all immigration outside countries in Europe.
Yeah…Trump seems to be flailing in the wind lately. It's a little sad, but worrisome. I'm curious what's going to happen when Congress is back in session. Will he just go along with their plans, or will be become rebellious after passing that bill that he hated (yet didn't read). It's very, very worrisome. He clearly wants to do more but doesn't understand his limits.
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My main concern is Trump starting a war under some sort of pretense to boost his approval numbers and get more support. He's already started with North Korea and China.
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[qimg]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaOwNYfXkAAuBwu.jpg[/qimg]
The upper floors of Trump Tower (of which I feel obligated to point have higher numbers than the building actually has stories and not in the usual "We skipped the thirteenth floor" sense but about ten more than it actually has) don't have sprinkler systems despite being a commercial building; it was apparently grandfathered in.
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Mar a Lago apparently doesn't have sufficient fire prevention measures either.
Potentially eating contaminated/spoiled food or dying horribly in a fire….....crapshoot if ever I saw one.
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Potentially eating contaminated/spoiled food or dying horribly in a fire….....crapshoot if ever I saw one.
Trump bragged that his tower withstood a fire — but has been silent about the man who died in it
This story tragically gets worse.
Forcing their way into the unit, firefighters pulled out one person, unconscious and unresponsive, who had been trapped inside, Nigro added.
The man was taken to the hospital in critical condition, police said. He later died.
Several residents also spoke of the fear and chaos that erupted after they realized their building was on fire.
“It was a very horrible experience . . . there was no evacuation system in place . . . we were at a loss of what to do. I almost fainted. I thought we would die,” Lalitha Mason, who lives on the 36th floor of Trump Tower, told the New York Post. “My husband is disabled and we were helpless. All we could do is put wet towels under the door and pray.”
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Trump's lack of empathy isn't really surprising he needs his time to bitch about Obama, Hillary, Sessions, and now kind of sorta Assad
When you try to make yourself look good but humiliate yourself instead
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Trump bragged that his tower withstood a fire — but has been silent about the man who died in it
This story tragically gets worse.
It apparently gets stupider
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/president-called-victim-deadly-trump-tower-fire-crazy-jew-report/
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Uh-oh spaghetti-o's.
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Jesus, I can hear Avennati's erection from here.
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What exactly is the thing republicans say Hilary was always lying about besides Benghazi? The Clinton foundation?
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@S.C.:
What exactly is the thing republicans say Hilary was always lying about besides Benghazi? The Clinton foundation?
Emails .
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Emails .
But the emails were tied to Benghazi. So how is she "robbing the people"?
I know this was all made-up bullshit to con the easily-fooled, granted.
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Reportedly Il Douche knew this raid was coming so it's almost certain that Cohen is getting thrown under the bus.
BRING FORTH THE AIRBRUSH!
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The start of a Twitter thread by Renato Mariotti that details a bit of how this search warrant affects things
THREAD: What does news that a search warrant was executed by the FBI at the offices of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen tell us about the investigation of Cohen and the Mueller investigation?
1/ Today the @nytimes reported that the FBI executed a search warrant at Cohen's offices, seizing a computer, phone, and personal financial records. The @washingtonpost reports that attorney-client communications were seized, which is not surprising.
2/ The @washingtonpost also reports that Cohen is under investigation for bank fraud and campaign finance violations. That is consistent with the original @nytimes reporting that records relating to Stormy Daniels were seized. Cohen was responsible for that agreement and payment.
3/ So what does this tell us? Many things. First, federal prosecutors in Manhattan presented evidence to a federal judge who concluded that there is good reason to believe that Cohen committed a crime and that evidence of that crime was located in Cohen's office.
4/ That means that Cohen is under investigation and that there is substantial evidence that evidence of a crime was at his office. It also means that federal prosecutors believed that they could not obtain the same records via subpoena. That's unusual and interesting.
5/ The United States Attorneys' Manual (DOJ's guidelines for federal prosecutors) disfavors search warrants of attorneys' offices. Section 9-13.420 states that "prosecutors are expected to take the least intrusive approach" and should consider subpoenas instead of a warrant.
6/ Section 13.420 requires authorization by the United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General, consultation with the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, a search warrant that is as narrow and specific as possible, and procedures to safeguard privileged materials.
8/ The fact that federal prosecutors obtained a search warrant tells us that they believed that they would not obtain the same records if they used a subpoena. That's not only what 9-13.420 requires, but it's also common sense—the prosecutors had an incentive to use a subpoena.
9/ Cohen is an attorney who has his own lawyer. If the prosecutors used a subpoena, Cohen's attorney would be obligated to go through all the documents and materials himself and produce only what's relevant to the prosecutors. He would be responsible for organizing them as well.
10/ Instead, prosecutors and FBI agents decided to take upon themselves the hefty task of seizing these documents, setting up complicated procedures to weed out privileged materials, and organize and digitize the documents. They wouldn't have done that if they didn't have to.
11/ This suggests that they have some information about Cohen that suggests that he would destroy evidence, hide evidence, or otherwise deceive the prosecution team. So what does this mean for Trump? It's an issue for him for at least two reasons.
12/ First, his relationship with Cohen appears to go beyond a typical lawyer-client relationship, by Cohen's own description. Communications between Cohen and Trump would be reviewed by a "taint team" that is separate and walled off from the investigators.
13/ If the taint team found communications between Trump and Cohen that were not privileged, those communications could be used in the investigation. An example would be communications that are completely unrelated to legal advice, or communications furthering an ongoing crime.
14/ Second, Trump should be concerned because Cohen appears to have significant potential criminal liability. He could potentially cooperate against Trump, although he appears unlikely to do so. Trump could pardon Cohen for any federal offense, but he cannot pardon state crimes.
15/ Most importantly, because the search warrant was required to be "drawn as specifically as possible," the fact that the FBI seized Trump's communications with Cohen suggests that the FBI believed that those communications may provide evidence in their criminal investigation.
16/ That should worry Trump. It doesn't necessarily mean that investigators believe Trump committed a crime, but it suggests that they believe that his communications would have potentially contained useful evidence. He was, at least, in close proximity of a crime.
17/ One question that is raised by this news that we cannot answer is why Mueller chose to refer this case to Manhattan prosecutors instead of handling it himself. Perhaps we will learn more in the days to come that could shed light on his decision. /end
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At a guess, Mueller did that as a way to help insulate the investigation in case he gets fired; the evidence was presented to and the go-ahead given by a Trump appointee.
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So, Rosenstein fired by end of week?
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Maggie says the red line has been crossed.
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Fox News actually runs a poll showing how little people trust them
Fox News wants to tell people the truth, including how no one trusts them.*
The network did just that Sunday when it had Republican strategist Frank Luntz on to talk about how President Trump was not getting enough credit for the economic recovery.*
Host Howard Kurtz asked Luntz what is keeping all that sweet attention away from our commander in chief, and he posited that it is obviously the media.*
Kurtz, hoping to add more proof to that garbage fire of an argument, asked for a graphic of a poll to be put on screen. And that's when things took a turn for the worse.
What appeared was a Monmouth University poll that asked people who they trusted more: a news network or Trump? All responders said that they trusted news more than Trump, but Fox News came in last in terms of trustworthiness.*
It seemed at the time to be an accident.
After the graphic mistakenly appeared, Kurtz immediately asked that his producer take it down. He brought it back up later in the segment to highlight how news sources are trusted more than the president.
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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaX8wAGU8AEYSdt.jpg:large
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Video:
I know it really isn't the focus of this post, nor the Twitter thread itself (one could say I'm nitpicking), but Trump is awfully ineloquent. English is a beautiful language and he butchers it at worst and struggles to articulate himself on a higher level at best.
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Fox News actually runs a poll showing how little people trust them
Beat you to the punch by a page:ninja:
I know it really isn't the focus of this post, nor the Twitter thread itself (one could say I'm nitpicking), but Trump is awfully ineloquent. English is a beautiful language and he butchers it at worst and struggles to articulate himself on a higher level at best.
It's not really nitpicking the guy is legit terrible at speaking and writing, I'm no poet laureate myself especially at the former but this is a guy who likes to draw attention to himself by speaking (or tweeting) publicly and comes off sounding horrible every time.
But yet Obama was criticized for reading off a teleprompter.
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It's not really nitpicking the guy is legit terrible at speaking and writing, I'm no poet laureate myself especially at the former but this is a guy who likes to draw attention to himself by speaking (or tweeting) publicly and comes off sounding horrible every time.
But yet Obama was criticized for reading off a teleprompter.
Think the best single argument for Trump's growing dementia (which really has seemed to drop out of the public eye since the doctor thing, for some reason) is the decline of his vocabulary and speaking ability. Listen to clips of the guy from, like, fifteen years ago (if you can handle it, he's so awful), and it's a completely different person. Especially noticeable that his only positive adjective is "beautiful" now.
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And tremendous .
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Just imagine what kind evidence you’d have to have to get a no-knock, full FBI raid of the personal dwelling of the top lawyer to the PRESIDENT.
Or, as the compromised “President” put it - “an attack on our country, total witch-hunt.”
And yeah, if you look at archived interviews with Trump he is completely different. Actually well spoken and able to put a thought together and use real words. It's pretty frightening to be able to see the decline… people just don't notice because no one paid attention to him until two years ago when he was already what he is now.
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I know it really isn't the focus of this post, nor the Twitter thread itself (one could say I'm nitpicking), but Trump is awfully ineloquent. English is a beautiful language and he butchers it at worst and struggles to articulate himself on a higher level at best.
He talks like an unholy fusion of a used car dealer and a carny hocker. "This tax deal? It's the best deal here! So many good functions!".
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Meanwhile, yeah Trump seems to be taking this well. You can tell he has a super, duper good argument cause he typed in all caps.
Warning: Screenshot of a Trump tweet. You don't have to click on it.
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Also, he later tweets, "attorney-client privilege is dead" despite no mention of what Cohen might have said in the media. Is…Trump giving something away again? Does he think that Cohen is talking, and has something to say? Either way, it's all stupid.
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Also, he later tweets, "attorney-client privilege is dead" despite no mention of what Cohen might have said in the media. Is…Trump giving something away again? Does he think that Cohen is talking, and has something to say? Either way, it's all stupid.
Seems more likely that he's trying to claim that the raid is illegal because it's taking documents that pertain to an attorney-client relationship. He either doesn't know or is intentionally trying to muddy the waters in that it is permissible with, y'know, evidence of a major crime and multiple sign-offs.
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Grassley's out with a strong support for Mueller and said firing him would be "suicide."
I think this is the first time Grassley's put his name on the board?
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He's just bullshitting. If Republicans cared about Mueller, they would've passed legislation to protect him.
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Xi really timed well his announcement just when Trump was trying to make Latin America and Europe ditch China in Free Trade. Now the US will be too bussy with Syria to counter attack.
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/10/politics/donald-trump-south-america-trip/index.html
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lol, n/m on Grassley, there was more:
"Maybe Mueller coming to a dead end as far as collusion of Trump with Russia in this election–and it looks like a dead end--maybe Mueller would appreciate being fired so he would have an excuse for getting out of it, and the Dems would have a good issue in this upcoming election."
STILL THE DUMBEST SENATOR
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I absolutely love that we don't see a single thing of Mueller, no video or written word. F*** this is entertaining.
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Just imagine what kind evidence you’d have to have to get a no-knock, full FBI raid of the personal dwelling of the top lawyer to the PRESIDENT.
Or, as the compromised “President” put it - “an attack on our country, total witch-hunt.”
And yeah, if you look at archived interviews with Trump he is completely different. Actually well spoken and able to put a thought together and use real words. It's pretty frightening to be able to see the decline… people just don't notice because no one paid attention to him until two years ago when he was already what he is now.
Dementia is always a sad thing, almost worse than Alzheimers. I'd feel really sad for Trump if he wasn't fucking up our country in the process.
It's also an argument for WHY YOU SHOULDN'T BE ANCIENT WHEN RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT.
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So, feels like it was obvious since yesterday that Rosenstein signed off on the Cohen search. This feels like another case of NYT trying to generate a headline that will get the Trump forces stirred up: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/us/politics/trump-russia-mueller-rosenstein.html?smid=tw-share
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Today on: https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/04/10/day-446/
Day 446: "Why don't I just fire Mueller?"
(Looks like a few of these will be repeats, but I'll include the whole batch anyway)
1/ Michael Cohen is under federal investigation for possible bank fraud, wire fraud, and violations of campaign finance law. The bank and wire fraud charges suggest prosecutors believe Cohen may have misled bankers about his use of certain funds or improperly used banks to transfer funds. Among the documents taken were those related to a 2016 payment Cohen made to Stormy Daniels. (Washington Post)
Lou Dobbs urged Trump to fire Robert Mueller in response to the raid of Michael Cohen's offices. "This is now a man that has to be brought under control, it would seem to me," Dobbs said. "Frankly, I can't imagine ― because each of us has to come to terms with our own heart and conscience ― I would fire the SOB in three seconds if it were me." (HuffPost)
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lou-dobbs-fire-robert-mueller_us_5acc2f69e4b07a3485e7af64
"Why don't I just fire Mueller? Well, I think it's a disgrace what's going on. We'll see what happens," Trump said. "But I think it's really a sad situation, when you look at what happened. And many people have said, you should fire him." (CNN / Politico)
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/09/trump-mueller-russia-probe-511118
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said "it would be suicide for the President to fire" Mueller. I think the less the President says about this whole thing, the better off he will be. And I think Mueller is a person of stature and respected and I respect him. Just let the thing go forward." (CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/10/politics/chuck-grassley-firing-mueller-suicide/index.html
Trump is "less inclined" to sit down for an interview with Robert Mueller after the raid on Michael Cohen. One source said Trump is "understandably less trusting" of Mueller and his team. (ABC News)
2/ Rod Rosenstein signed off on the FBI's decision to raid Cohen's office. Agents were looking, in part, for records about payments Cohen made to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, as well as information related to the publisher of The National Enquirer's role in silencing one of the women. Rosenstein, a Republican prosecutor, was picked by Trump to serve as deputy attorney general. (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/us/politics/trump-russia-mueller-rosenstein.html
3/ In a pair of morning tweets, Trump declared that the raids are "A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!" and that "attorney–client privilege is dead!" Attorney-client privilege is intended to encourage open communications between lawyers and their clients, so that lawyers can provide legal advice. The privilege is not absolute and there are exceptions for communications made to further a crime. The FBI would have to demonstrate probably cause to a magistrate judge that evidence of a crime would be found in Cohen's offices, or in a hotel where he was living. "No question, a search warrant for a lawyer is an extraordinary act," Frank Montoya, a former senior FBI official, said. "Everyone involved in this process, including the judge who signed the warrant, understood the scrutiny that would follow its execution. As such, everyone in the process would have done their damnedest to make the warrant as bulletproof as possible." (Reuters / NBC News)
4/ The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York is recused from the Michael Cohen investigation. Geoffrey Berman is a Trump appointee with ties to Rudy Giuliani, who donated money to the 2016 Trump campaign. The recusal was approved by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. (ABC News)
Former US Attorney Preet Bharara: The FBI raids were done by officials who were all "handpicked" by Trump. "If the reporting is true, particularly the part about this being approved by the Southern District of New York Attorney's Office which I used to lead, are all people who are Republican, and all people who have basically been handpicked by Donald Trump." (CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/09/politics/preet-bharara-fbi-raid/index.html
5/ Robert Mueller is investigating a $150,000 donation to the Trump Organization in 2015 from Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk. The donation by the Ukrainian steel magnate was made in return for a 20-minute appearance by Trump during the campaign, and is being investigated as part of Mueller's efforts to examine foreign money Trump and his associates received prior to the election. (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/us/politics/trump-mueller-ukraine-victor-pinchuk.html
poll/ 25% of 18- to 29-year-olds approve of Trump's job performance. 37% of Americans under 30 who are eligible to vote said they will "definitely be voting" in the midterms, compared to 23% who said the same thing in 2014. And, 69% said they want to see Democrats in control, compared with 28 percent who favor Republican control. (Harvard University's Institute of Politics)
http://iop.harvard.edu/spring-2018-poll
Notables.
Trump's homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, resigned at the request of new National Security Adviser John Bolton. Bossert is the second national security official to leave the White House since Bolton began the job on Monday. Michael Anton, a spokesman for the National Security Council, announced his resignation on Sunday. (Bloomberg / CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/10/trumps-top-homeland-security-advisor-tom-bossert-to-resign.html
Trump won't attend the Summit of Americas this week as planned. He will, instead, stay in the U.S. and "oversee the American response to Syria." Pence will take Trump's place at the meetings. (Politico / New York Times)
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/10/trump-skipping-summit-of-the-americas-512221
Mike Pompeo asked Hillary Clinton for guidance on how to prepare for the secretary of state confirmation process. Pompeo once called Clinton's response to the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, "morally reprehensible." (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/10/pompeo-hearing-state-clinton-512155
The chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group met with Trump at the White House to pitch a new broadcasting standard the company is heavily invested in, which would allow authorities to broadcast directly to any American's phone. During the 2016 campaign, David Smith told Trump: "We are here to deliver your message." (The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/apr/10/donald-trump-sinclair-david-smith-white-house-meeting
The Russian military has been jamming the GPS systems of U.S. military drones operating in Syria. The Defense Department did not say whether the jamming is causing drones to crash. (NBC News)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/russia-has-figured-out-how-jam-u-s-drones-syria-n863931
The EPA's chief of staff claimed responsibility for the pay raises given to two of Scott Pruitt's top aides. Ryan Jackson also said that the pay raises had been reversed. "Administrator Pruitt had zero knowledge of the amount of the raises, nor the process by which they transpired," Jackson wrote in an email statement. (Bloomberg)
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Dementia is always a sad thing, almost worse than Alzheimers.
Alzheimers is just a subset of dementia; just the most common subset that makes up over half of dementia cases.
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McConnell: "We're not going to do anything to protect Mueller because we don't think anything will happen to Mueller"
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hehe, remember when Zuck was clearly acting like he was going to run for President?
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@White:
Xi really timed well his announcement just when Trump was trying to make Latin America and Europe ditch China in Free Trade. Now the US will be too bussy with Syria to counter attack.
That or Trump will be too busy whining about Comey's sunday interview and book release.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/09/comey-book-trump-white-house-508621
Also, he later tweets, "attorney-client privilege is dead" despite no mention of what Cohen might have said in the media. Is…Trump giving something away again? Does he think that Cohen is talking, and has something to say? Either way, it's all stupid.
Even more so with the fact that both Chris Christie and Kellyanne Conway's husband have shit on this claim.