US Politics Thread |OT| SAD TRUMP

[benjipwns]

The Keystone XL oil pipeline won't use American steel in its construction, despite what President Donald Trump says.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday that's due to language in a presidential directive Trump issued in January.

"The way that executive order is written, it’s specific to new pipelines or those that are being repaired, Sanders said. "And since this one is already currently under construction, the steel is already literally sitting there, it would be hard to go back. But I know that everything moving forward would fall under that executive order."

The directive applies to new pipelines or those under repair. Sanders said it would be hard to do an about-face on Keystone because it's already under construction and the steel has been acquired.

Trump said as recently as last week that Keystone and the Dakota Access pipeline must use American steel "or we're not building one."

THEN WAIT ON THE NEW GREAT AMERICAN STEEL, SEND THAT GARBAGE STEEL BACK TO WHATEVER HELL HOLE IT CAME FROM

[benjipwns]

benji the Republican (in one act):

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Saturday said he is “very worried” about President Trump’s accusation that former President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower.

Finally, the esteemed and respected Senator is focusing on the real issues, hopefully he will lead the investigation into...

“I’m very worried that our president is suggesting the former president has done something illegal,” Graham said at a town hall in Clemson, S.C

THIS FLAMING FUCKING taco TRAITOR, RINO PIECE OF SHIT

[benjipwns]

STAY WOKE

[benjipwns]

SYPHNEWS:

Mark Levin is not only urging Congress to investigate Obama’s “Silent Coup” against President Trump, but he’s also exposing it.

Levin, who took a while to jump on the Trump Train, is now full steam ahead, as he works tirelessly to expose Obama and his shadow government, hell-bent on bringing President Trump down through “impeachment.”

spoiler (click to show/hide)

benji ->

[close]

[Mandark]

So there's a brouhaha over Charles Murray getting shouted down at a college. Saw people refer to him doing cross-burning and turns out yeah, he burned a cross in high school and claimed he had no idea it would have "racial significance."

How'd I miss that tidbit all the other times he's come up? Also just sheesh.

[zomgee]

He lit a big lowercase t in the front yard - for "time to leave."

[FStop7]

How is bringing a guy like that onto a campus not a Title IX violation? 

[benjipwns]

His political views aren't the only reason he doesn't have a normal academia job to go with the think tanks. He hasn't taught in general academia since 1974. A decade before he wrote Losing Ground. Which itself was a decade before The Bell Curve.

So there's a brouhaha over Charles Murray getting shouted down at a college. Saw people refer to him doing cross-burning and turns out yeah, he burned a cross in high school and claimed he had no idea it would have "racial significance."

How'd I miss that tidbit all the other times he's come up? Also just sheesh.

Even better, it was next to a police station:

Murray and his chums had formed a kind of good guys' gang, "the Mallows," whose very name, a truncation of the word "marshmallows", was a self-deprecating allusion to their own softness. In the fall of 1960, during their senior year, they nailed some scrap wood into a cross, adorned it with fireworks, and set it ablaze on a hill beside the police station, with scattered marshmallows as a calling card.

Rutledge [a social worker and former juvenile delinquent] who was still hanging around the pool hall [and considers some of Murray's other memories to be idealized] recalls his astonishment the next day when the talk turned to racial persecution in a town with two black families. "There wouldn't have been a racist thought in our simple-minded minds," he says. "That's how unaware we were."

A long pause follows when Murray is reminded of the event. "Incredibly, incredibly dumb," he says. "But it never crossed our minds that this had any larger significance. And I look back on that and say, 'How on earth could we be so oblivious?' I guess it says something about that day and age that it didn't cross our minds"

[benjipwns]

Oh, it was at Middlebury. Private institution.

The college is the first American institution of higher education to have granted a bachelor's degree to an African-American, graduating Alexander Twilight in the class of 1823.

huh

The school is known for its graduate programs that focus on language, political science and entrepreneurship.

gross

[benjipwns]

Rafi from The League is an alum

GATTACA! GATTACA! GATTACA! GATTACA!

[benjipwns]

lol at dude reading the boilerplate at the start all like "please just let me finish":

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

Rob S 1 day ago
If I found out one of my kids in college were up to these type of liberal hi jinks,  I'd cut off all of their funding, credit card, payments, etc. and tell them they are on their own.   And don't return home until they grow the hell up.

stef25ify 1 day ago (edited)
Didn't know about Charles Murray until this took place. Just bought some of his books. Your protests made me buy his books and put money in his pocket. So thanks, from both of us (probably). You people should be utterly ashamed of yourselves.

PhilosopherKing 1 day ago
This man has done actual scientific research. They are shouting down a discussion about his findings b/c they hate the ideas behind his work. This is some shit out of the dark ages. Our society has regressed so far, its so disappointing.

Schlomo Weissbergman-Goldsteinwitz, Ph.D. 1 day ago
You can try to appease and reason with these little crybaby marxists and their Jewish handlers all you want. You will still be labeled a racist, a supremacist, a 'nazi'.

They ruined South Africa and they will ruin America.

Sam Houston 1 day ago
Hey look at that! The Left being tolerant and respecting freedom of speech. Oh wait.....

I don't think this last guy is the actual former President of Texas

[Madrun Badrun]

Catchy chant.  Shows just how musically lazy other protests are. 

[Brehvolution]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/03/04/trump-accuses-obama-of-nixonwatergate-plot-to-wire-tap-trump-tower/

but he was so presidential when he addressed congress!

he's a different man now!

this time he's really different, honest!

 

[Madrun Badrun]

I like how he likens it to water gate when the more apt example seems to be Nixon negotiating with south Vietnam before being elected. 

[benjipwns]

CNN confirms Obama wiretapped and hacked Trump Tower during the election:

"Just nonsense," said one former senior US intelligence official.

Another former senior US official with direct knowledge of investigations by the Justice Department under the Obama administration said Trump's phones were never tapped.

"This did not happen. It is false. Wrong," the former official told CNN.

A spokesman for Obama, Kevin Lewis, called "any suggestion" that Obama or any White House official ordered surveillance against Trump "simply false."

"A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice," Lewis said in a statement early Saturday afternoon. "As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."

Warrants to tap into someone's phones in the course of a federal investigation would be sought by the Department of Justice, which conducts investigations independent of the White House and the president.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, an independent and secretive federal court, is responsible for issuing surveillance warrants in cases concerning foreign intelligence. The FBI has been investigating contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Russians known to US intelligence, and that court would likely be the forum to petition for such a warrant.

The former senior US official with direct knowledge of the Justice Department's investigations said Obama could not have ordered such a warrant. It would have been taken to a judge by investigators, but investigators never sought a warrant to monitor Trump's phones, the former official said.

A federal judge would only have approved a warrant to wiretap Trump's phones if he or she had found probable cause that Trump had committed a federal crime or was a foreign agent.

Former Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes echoed the point in a tweet responding to Trump on Saturday morning.

"No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you," he said in his Twitter post.

[Madrun Badrun]

As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.

I can spot lawyer talk a million miles away.  Clearly Obama personally wiretapped the place.  Probably dressed as a janitor so Trump wouldn't notice him.

[Kara]

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/why-the-alt-left-is-a-problem

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/why-the-alt-center-is-a-problem-too.html

gasp(lighting) if true

A hallmark of the literal end of history is the incessant need to rename things that already existed and claim they're a new ill.

[Dickie Dee]

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/838066601870131201

[recursivelyenumerable]

https://twitter.com/addamschloe/status/836313568383488000

https://twitter.com/totominya/status/836314701940289536

  I couldn't let this stand, I had to defend the Windows key's honor here:

https://twitter.com/crossslide/status/836340452592779264

[Dickie Dee]

pick your battles breh 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

p.s. still my favorite poster here 

[close]

[Kara]

Windows key + D a.k.a. the boss is coming special

Windows key + tab a.k.a. I don't get motion sick and want the future today

[recursivelyenumerable]

There are also Win1-0 (aka 1-10) for launching the first 10 apps pinned to your taskbar. I always keep them pinned in a certain order on all my PCs so these shortcuts will work consistently. 1 = file explorer, 2 = whatever browser is primary, 3 = Visual Studio, etc.

[Madrun Badrun]

Live the life of a speed demon visual studio starter

[Huff]

I personally identify as the ctrl key personally personally

[Kara]

There are also Win1-0 (aka 1-10) for launching the first 10 apps pinned to your taskbar. I always keep them pinned in a certain order on all my PCs so these shortcuts will work consistently. 1 = file explorer, 2 = whatever browser is primary, 3 = Visual Studio, etc.

Same.

+ left or right will snap your window to the left and right sides of the screen, respectively.

The productivity of the tweeter in question must be, frankly, embarrassing.

[Boogie]

So the Trump diehards somehow think this is about Obama now?

Let's be honest, for them, it was always about Obama...

[Madrun Badrun]

Honestly how long can the Obama is badman card work for his administration? 

[Rufus]

There are also Win1-0 (aka 1-10) for launching the first 10 apps pinned to your taskbar. I always keep them pinned in a certain order on all my PCs so these shortcuts will work consistently. 1 = file explorer, 2 = whatever browser is primary, 3 = Visual Studio, etc.

Aw yeah, but why waste a number on Explorer when there's Win+E?

[recursivelyenumerable]

Yeah pinning file explorer is more for mouse than keyboard. File explorer's right-click jump list is pretty useful in 10 where they synced it with favorites eliminating the annoying redundancy/inconsistency that existed in 7/8

[Joe Molotov]

Honestly how long can the Obama is badman card work for his administration? 

How long you got?

[Rufus]

Yeah pinning file explorer is more for mouse than keyboard. File explorer's right-click jump list is pretty useful in 10 where they synced it with favorites eliminating the annoying redundancy/inconsistency that existed in 7/8

Ah, ofc. I left it be for that reason at first, but then I just pinned the handful of folders I revisit most. Two actions to open them, but since it's one for each hand I feel OK about it.

[zomgee]

Honestly how long can the Obama is badman card work for his administration?

At least 43 more months

[Syph]

SNL's lone bright spot (Kate) delivers again

[Oblivion]

[Atramental]

 

[sarslip]

Dat framerate 

[etiolate]

That reminds me of the turkeys that roam this area.

[Nola]

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump’s assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump’s phones, senior American officials said on Sunday. Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement.

Mr. Comey made the request on Saturday after Mr. Trump leveled his allegation on Twitter. Mr. Comey has been working to get the Justice Department to knock down Mr. Trump’s claim because there is no evidence to support it and it insinuates that the F.B.I. broke the law, the officials said.

A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. Sarah Isgur Flores, the spokeswoman for the Justice Department, also declined to comment.

A statement by the Justice Department or Mr. Comey refuting Mr. Trump’s allegations would be a remarkable rebuke of a sitting president, putting the nation’s top law enforcement officials in the position of questioning the truthfulness of the government’s top leader. The situation underscores the high stakes of what the president and his aides have set out by accusing the former president of a conspiracy to undermine Mr. Trump’s young administration.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/us/politics/trump-seeks-inquiry-into-allegations-that-obama-tapped-his-phones.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

When even Comey says you fucked up 


Though the more serious question will be, will Comey actually nut up and say that publicly, or will this be as far as it goes? Just unnamed sources Trump can slander tomorrow morning before he tries to shift to his immigration ban? Essentially allowing Trump to continue asserting it and pressing for a witch hunt without any check on the action by the part of the government that is most poised to do it.

[benjipwns]

 

[Joe Molotov]

This is Watergate on steroids.  What I am hearing is the warrant would be illegal. The FBI warrant that was eventually granted was justified by looking at financial crimes. That isn't an appropriate target for a FISA court. (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) The court is supposed to focus on foreign national security threats not domestic crimes. In addition the surveillance continued after the warrant had expired which just made it plain illegal surveillance. The second issue here is if a FISA court granted this and then Obama's staff is leaking all this highly classified data to the media that alone is a huge felony crime.

[Nola]

  

I like how casually he conflates the FBI investigating Russian connections with Obama directly ordering this wiretap for political reasons.

Though if my resident barometers of how the Trumpkins are swallowing this story scales up, it seems to be working.

..Though I can't help but see the irony in an attack that basically amounts to saying the Justice Department is a pawn of the administration while simultaneously trying to defend Jeff Sessions as a quality independent AG. Who didn't need to recuse himself. All in the face of the recent event where that very same pawn department looked into Hillary's emails and made public statements about them at a really suspect moment in the campaign season.

[Nola]

This is Watergate on steroids.  What I am hearing is the warrant would be illegal. The FBI warrant that was eventually granted was justified by looking at financial crimes. That isn't an appropriate target for a FISA court. (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) The court is supposed to focus on foreign national security threats not domestic crimes. In addition the surveillance continued after the warrant had expired which just made it plain illegal surveillance. The second issue here is if a FISA court granted this and then Obama's staff is leaking all this highly classified data to the media that alone is a huge felony crime.

Exactly, its all right there. If only Trump would just use his powers of the executive to declassify all the evidence he has to support his assertions. Hoo boy Obama will be in trouble then!

What say you Trump? You gonna help us out here:
https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/838386520906219520

 

Gotta give him credit though, this is one of his better deflections. Even if I don't actually think he is smart enough to do this sort of stuff strategically. So good though that it could reasonably come back to bite him in the ass by leading down a path that could open into a broader investigation that will really bog his administration down.

[chronovore]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/06/fbi-director-challenges-trump-over-obama-wiretap-claims-reports

So Comey originally set up Hillary by timing email investigations which would publicly discredit her. With Trump continuing to throw the IC under the bus, do you think Comey is regretting backing the candidate his actions directly benefited?

[benjipwns]

Is this like the ultimate peak Breitbart outrage headline:


And yes I did crop it to make sure that Curt Shilling ad was included.

[benjipwns]

Guys are MS-13 members arrested after a standoff with SWAT and all but still:

The two laughed and waved at television cameras during their first court appearance last week.

[Joe Molotov]

I'm glad that alien satanism is still outlawed in Texas.

[Joe Molotov]

Travel Ban Part Deux just hit. This time with 100% less Iraq.

[Brehvolution]

Bigly stupid.

 

[FStop7]

It might stand this time.  It's pathetic and cowardly but it sounds like it's within his authority.  But his contempt of the judicial system and the taint from the previous EO might sink it, anyway.  Can't wait for the meltdowns if it's blocked again.

Oh and the "Iran is working with Al Qaeda" bit should hopefully shut down the few holdouts in the "12 dimensional chess" camp.  You're not dealing with Machiavellian tactical geniuses.  Your'e dealing with inbred hicks in suits.  Don't inflate them to be anything more than they are.

[CajoleJuice]

I can't hear Mark Levin without thinking of this:

[FStop7]

The first time I heard Levin speak on the radio I thought it was Sean Hannity doing a comedy bit in a funny voice.

[Nola]

The GOP Obamacare replacement defunds Planned Parenthood and restricts abortion coverage

In practice, defunding the organization takes money away from its mostly low-income patients, who might be forced to seek care elsewhere if the government stopped subsidizing their visits to Planned Parenthood. Low-income women will be hit especially hard, but all Planned Parenthood patients may be affected if clinics are forced to close as a result of budget cuts.

But the bill would actually go further. It threatens to dismantle the entire private insurance market for abortion coverage, not just public funding for abortion providers: If a woman wants a health insurance plan that will cover abortion, she (and possibly her employer) won’t be able to use tax credits to buy it under this bill.

Under the new Republican plan, any insurance plans that cover abortion — unless the woman became pregnant through rape or incest, or if the abortion is needed to save her life — won’t be eligible for tax credits.

Tax credits help make insurance more affordable for some consumers. That means insurance coverage for abortion, specifically, will be more expensive. These restrictions also apply to the tax credits that some small businesses use to purchase health care plans — but those tax credits will be gone entirely by 2020.

http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/6/14836998/obamacare-repeal-replace-bill-defund-planned-parenthood

The fun starts haha. They are coming out the gate with an easy target on them. All the Trump turmoil and they choose the most contentious social policy issue over the last 100 years(healthcare) to make their first major piece of legislation. Attaching with it one of the most mobilizing and divisive issues(restricting abortion) of the last 40 years.

[Joe Molotov]

What if Obama really was still the shadow president, pulling all the strings behind the scenes like Trump thinks? That would be pretty dope imo.

[Trent Dole]

That shit isn't passing.

[Stro]

Trump is going to the the travel ban 8 times until Germany and France are the only countries on the ban.

[Madrun Badrun]

all aboard the travel ban van.  Toot toot

[Kara]

Travel Ban Part Deux just hit. This time with 100% less Iraq.

Hopefully the party that represents Muslims in the U.S. (admittedly through no particular designs of its own, and often in spite of its foreign policy) has been planning to do something about this inevitability instead of wasting the interbellum wringing its hands about a completely unrelated and largely unsubstantiated series of events that transpired before the current presidency.

Hopefully.

[Mandark]

Hopefully the party that represents Muslims in the U.S. (admittedly through no particular designs of its own, and often in spite of its foreign policy) has been planning to do something about this inevitability instead of wasting the interbellum wringing its hands about a completely unrelated and largely unsubstantiated series of events that transpired before the current presidency.

Hopefully.

I'd expect them to do the same thing as last time, and introduce a symbolic bill that would immediately get referred to committee and die, then cross their fingers and hope for a court victory. Unless a dozen Senators from the majority party decide to break with the president and make a stand. Ha ha ha.

If this presidency has shown us anything it's that a political operation, even a thoroughly amateurish one, can walk and chew gum at the same time as far as public caviling about unsubstantiated scandals goes.

[Kara]

I feel that that's been on display in state legislature after state legislature for years now and the lesson to take away from les Cent-Jours is that the GOP has clearly graduated to the "using the master's tools against him or her" phase of their politics. (Instead of existing in it with a War on Terror air of plausible deniability as was previously the case.)

[VomKriege]

Travel Ban Part Deux just hit. This time with 100% less Iraq.

Hopefully the party that represents Muslims in the U.S. (admittedly through no particular designs of its own, and often in spite of its foreign policy) has been planning to do something about this inevitability instead of wasting the interbellum wringing its hands about a completely unrelated and largely unsubstantiated series of events that transpired before the current presidency.

Hopefully.

Hopefully the Executive Order met with a Russian official during the campaign.  "Arzloub !" as they say in multidimensional chess-poker.