President* Trump

[O Really]

"That's true, we did, a proud, patriotic and necessary tradition since the Boston Tea Party.
Funny that now the Putin-puppet looozers are the 62% regretting their YUUUGE mistake, isn't it?"

Yep ...

"a proud, patriotic and necessary tradition ..." a preview of future traditions when elections don't go as hoped ?

Possibly, but most of the protesting isn't over the election. The election ended as it did, asterisk or not. The protests are generally to sow opposition to what Trump said and continues to say that he wants to do. Mass deportations, Alabamizing the Justice Department, massive conflicts of interest, gutting the EPA. Those aren't things a rational citizen can sit around and say, "Oh, let's give the man a chance." Most are protesting current actions and statements, not what occurred on election day.

[Vrede too]

... The protests are generally to sow opposition to what Trump said and continues to say that he wants to do. Mass deportations, Alabamizing the Justice Department, massive conflicts of interest, gutting the EPA....

... religious bigotry, something Mr.B claims to oppose, white supremacists at the highest level, unconstitutional EOs, sexual-assaulter-in-chief, Russia, transferring more wealth to the uber rich, the military and the merchants of death, and aside from policy, the sheer immaturity, lunacy and incompetence, etc.

Mr.B is delusional if he thinks this is all about wishing for Hillary, as O Really says. He must not have been paying attention if he hasn't noticed that this has never happened when other Repubs have been elected. It's odd that he responded at all, given that he claims to be among those that now regret voting for President* Trump. I guess he's so obsessed with me that he just has to whine even when I agree with him.

[Vrede too]

Donald J. Trump‏ Verified account
@realDonaldTrump

Maybe the millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN should have their own rally. It would be the biggest of them all!

4:25 AM - 25 Feb 2017

'He's Doing A Good Job': Supporters Rally Nationwide To Defend Trump

I haven't seen any source indicating that more than "hundreds" showed up anywhere. In stark contrast:
http://www.blueridgedebate.com/viewtopi ... lle#p70003

250K in Chicago.
60K (per cops, may have been more) in Atlanta! 3 times what I expected. The rain stopped just in time, would have been a lot more people if it hadn't poured all morning and early afternoon.
500K in D.C., twice the number at President* Trump's inauguration. They gave up on actually marching because the crowd filled the entire march route. Or "1.2 million”.
2K in Greenville, South Carolina!
Millions here and around the world.

Don't know the source but heard that 3 million marched in 600+ events in the US yesterday, not sure about the rest of the world.

In other words, it looks like Greenville, South Carolina's anti-President* Trump, pro-women rally had at least twice as many show up as did for President* Trump anywhere when he most needs them, Greenville!

Latest Trump Tweet: Thank you for the great rallies all across the country. Tremendous support. Make America Great Again! (Liked by 65537 idiots.)

Tremendous.

[Mr.B]

Latest Trump Tweet: Thank you for the great rallies all across the country. Tremendous support. Make America Great Again! (Liked by 65537 idiots.)

Tremendous.

You had us all fooled,Vrede. We thought you didn't like Trump; here you are quoting and notating your being one LIKING him...

[Vrede too]

... massive conflicts of interest, gutting the EPA....

Teed off: Critics say Trump water rule helps his golf links

[bannination]

US spies have 'considerable intelligence' on high-level Trump-Russia talks, claims ex-NSA analyst

Yeah well.... I guess we'll see as time goes on.

[O Really]

Schindler is a bit of a loose cannon who now writes for the NY Observer. But his loose-cannoness isn't related to his actual work or his knowledge. Something about somebody (who may or may not have been Schindler) sending a penis-pic. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot of intel there. Bad press notwithstanding, the NSA is (or was) very good at its job.

[Vrede too]

... massive conflicts of interest ...

Following Sessions’ Mar-a-Lago appearance, new ethics questions arise

At some point during the Obama era, conservatives convinced themselves that the Democratic president took an outrageous amount of time off, traveled constantly, and vastly preferred golfing to working. The criticisms were always quite silly – especially after George W. Bush broke every modern record for time off taken by a sitting president – but the right nevertheless embraced the nonsense with great enthusiasm.

Vox recently talked to a series of CPAC attendees, many of whom continued to complain bitterly about Obama’s travel costs and downtime. Told that Donald Trump is actually spending more on travel and enjoying more downtime, conservatives were incredulous. The facts “can’t possibly be right,” one said. “That absolutely can’t be right.”

Reality, however, is stubborn. Trump headlined a political fundraiser on Friday night, before heading to Mar-a-Lago, the for-profit club he still owns, for another relaxing weekend. Over the last five weekends, the president has visited his luxury resort four times – each trip costs American taxpayers about $3 million – and as of last night, Trump had spent 31% of his presidency at Mar-a-Lago. He’s now played golf eight times since taking office six weeks ago.

In October 2014, Trump whined via Twitter, “We pay for Obama’s travel so he can fundraise millions so Democrats can run on lies. Then we pay for his golf.” A year later, as a presidential candidate, Trump declared that if he were in office, he’d dispense with breaks. “I’d want to stay in the White House and work my ass off,” he told voters.

Like so many of his claims, Trump apparently didn’t mean a word of it. (Last week, the White House even gave the press misleading information about one the president’s golf outings.)

But this latest trip was a little different – because as the Palm Beach Post noted, Trump this time brought along some powerful friends.

President Donald Trump mingled with guests outside a charity ball at his Mar-a-Lago Club on Saturday night. As attendees danced inside the ballroom where the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute held its gala, the president was spotted nearby, shaking hands and talking with club members and guests.

Earlier, Attorney General Jeff Sessions also took a few moments from high-level meetings to greet guests at the estate.

Oh good, we’ve reached the point at which the attorney general of the United States is a prop for members at the president’s for-profit club.

What’s more, Sessions wasn’t alone. Two other members of Trump’s cabinet – Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross – were also on hand in Florida over the weekend.

I appreciate the fact that there are a variety of very serious scandals surrounding this White House, but the conflicts surrounding Trump and Mar-a-Lago are tough to defend. I’m reminded anew of this recent New York Times piece, which noted that Team Trump has created “an arena for potential political influence rarely seen in American history: a kind of Washington steakhouse on steroids, situated in a sunny playground of the rich and powerful, where members and their guests enjoy a level of access that could elude even the best-connected of lobbyists.”

… Mr. Trump’s weekend White House appears to be unprecedented in American history, as it is the first one with customers paying a company owned by the president, several historians said.

“Mar-a-Lago represents a commercialization of the presidency that has few if any precedents in American history,” said Jon Meacham, a presidential historian and Andrew Jackson biographer. “Presidents have always spent time with the affluent,” he added. “But a club where people pay you as president to spend time in his company is new. It is kind of amazing.”

And it’s not just Trump. Those who pay the $200,000 membership fee also, evidently, get access to the U.S. attorney general and other powerful cabinet secretaries, and even get front-row seats to see officials respond in real time to national security challenges, conducted in full view of civilians.

The club’s managing director conceded to the Times that Trump’s presidency “enhances” club membership – which may help explain the increase in entrance fees – adding, “People are now even more interested in becoming members.”

If you voted Republican because you were worried about Hillary Clinton and pay-to-play controversies, I have some very bad news for you. Trump is profiting from the presidency in ways no one has been able to credibly defend.

As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, we’re looking at an ethical nightmare. A president who refuses to divest from his many business ventures still owns a for-profit enterprise, in which undisclosed people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for exclusive access – and the facility itself openly acknowledges the financial benefits of exploiting Trump’s presidency.

How many lobbyists or agents of foreign governments are signing up to take advantage? We don’t know – because Mar-a-Lago doesn’t disclose its membership list.

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent talked recently to Norm Eisen, the chief ethics czar under President Obama, who pointed to Trump’s dramatic use of his for-profit club as a serious problem.

Eisen argued to me … that you cannot divorce this latest story from Trump’s seemingly reflexive or deliberately thought out use of his position as president to promote his business interests or those of his family. After all, Eisen notes, the very act of inviting [Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe to Mar-a-Lago itself must be evaluated as, potentially, an effort to promote his resort, given the pattern of behavior we’ve seen from this White House, which has included repeated efforts by Trump and his aides to punish Nordstrom for declining to carry Ivanka Trump’s clothing line or to drive customers to Ivanka.

“We’ve had a lot of presidents who hosted foreign leaders away from the White House,” Eisen said. “But we’ve never in history had one do it in a place where he’s selling memberships for hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop. Trump just could not resist the opportunity to make an infomercial for his property. He’s worked hard all his life to generate free media. Now he’s hit the mother lode, and he’s not going to stop.”

There’s no reason to go along with this as if it were somehow normal.

Make America (even more) Corrupt Again.

Park Service photos challenge Trump on inauguration (article and a couple of pics)

NPS FOIA - Frequently Requested Documents
Scroll about halfway down the page to "Recently Added Material/Inaugural Photos: (Large Zip Files)".


More plagiarism:

The White House Copied Exxon’s Press Release in a Statement Praising Exxon

Amateurs.

[Vrede too]

9 good NPS slides telling the story:
2017 Trump vs 2009 Obama inauguration photos

SSDD:

Trump incorrectly blames Obama for freeing ‘vicious’ Gitmo detainees — most released by Bush

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!

Carol Rosenberg (Miami Herald)
@carolrosenberg

Wrong POTUS, @realDonaldTrump. Your intel agencies report shows Bush released 113 of the 122 re-engagers from Gitmo.
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/FIN ... 202016.pdf

... As is often the case with Trump’s tweets, the president apparently got the questionable statistic while watching his favorite morning show, “Fox & Friends.” ...

"Trump incorrectly blames" is the start of oh so very many discussions. It's a little unclear from the article but it looks like President* Trump may have confounded what Fox & Friends said - getting the "122" correct but attributing them all to Obama on his own.

Latest Trump Tweet: Don't let the FAKE NEWS tell you that there is big infighting in the Trump Admin. We are getting along great, and getting major things done! (Liked by 62089 idiots.)

As much as your team is screwing up, it's worse for you to be saying that there is no infighting, moron.

[Vrede too]

House intel chair: Media take Trump tweets too literally

You know that the GOP is desperate when its defense of Trump is that he's an unqualified rookie who's unable to express himself competently.

[rstrong]

Meet the Swamp: Some of the 400+ lobbyists and Breitbart / WorldNetDaily nutjobs Trump is quietly placing in positions of power across the US government.

Many of them lobbied in the same areas that are regulated by the agencies they have now joined....
[...]
Curtis Ellis was a columnist for WorldNetDaily, a website best known for its enthusiastic embrace of the false notion that President Obama was born outside the United States. A column headlined the “The Radical Left’s Ethnic Cleansing of America” won Ellis an admiring interview with Steve Bannon, now Trump’s top aide. Ellis was hired Jan. 20 as a special assistant to the secretary at the Labor Department. Asked about his role in a brief phone interview Tuesday, he said: “Nothing I can tell you.”

[billy.pilgrim]

Didn't thumper sign some sort of EO against members of his admin lobbying? 5 year domestic and lifetime ban for foreign

So why is crazy general flynn working as a foreign lobbyist

[Vrede too]

Trump puts five-year lobbying ban on his political appointees

President Donald Trump on Saturday put restrictions on the kind of lucrative lobbying gigs his White House aides and other administration officials can accept after they leave government.

Trump, a Republican businessman whose campaign was based in part on getting rid of Washington insiders, had pledged during last year's election campaign to "drain the swamp" of political practices that he said made politicians beholden to business interests.

On his executive order making good on that pledge, Trump said his appointees would agree to refrain from lobbying their own agency for five years after leaving, and would not lobby any government appointee for two years.

Trump's order also requires his officials to agree to a lifetime ban on working on behalf of foreign governments or foreign political parties.

Trump himself has come under pressure to distance himself from his business interests, and put his sons in charge of his company, which owns hotels, golf courses and other real estate around the world. Ethics watchdogs have said the arrangement does not prevent conflicts of interest.

Nothing about lobbying in general or lobbying for a foreign government immediately prior to appointment or while in his administration.

I've seen it said that this applies to Flynn despite his very short tenure, not sure whether that will hold up.

[bannination]

... The protests are generally to sow opposition to what Trump said and continues to say that he wants to do. Mass deportations, Alabamizing the Justice Department, massive conflicts of interest, gutting the EPA....

... religious bigotry, something Mr.B claims to oppose, white supremacists at the highest level, unconstitutional EOs, sexual-assaulter-in-chief, Russia, transferring more wealth to the uber rich, the military and the merchants of death, and aside from policy, the sheer immaturity, lunacy and incompetence, etc.

Mr.B is delusional if he thinks this is all about wishing for Hillary, as O Really says. He must not have been paying attention if he hasn't noticed that this has never happened when other Repubs have been elected. It's odd that he responded at all, given that he claims to be among those that now regret voting for President* Trump. I guess he's so obsessed with me that he just has to whine even when I agree with him.

You don't have to guess considering he's a stalker IRL.

[Mr.B]

"I guess he's so obsessed with me that he just has to whine even when I agree with him".

"You don't have to guess considering he's a stalker IRL."

No obsession; it's just too easy to get carried away and not notice.

Stalker ...? Nope. I found what I was looking for the ONE time I went looking.
Why are you keeping the pot stirred, banni? Are you bored? Get a life.

[Vrede too]

Trump's Interests vs. America's, Azerbaijan Edition
The president’s business partners in the capital city of Baku have ties to corruption not only there but in Iran as well.

... . The details suggest that, on top of the continual underlying breach of the Emoluments Clause, the Trump Organization’s involvement may also violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, which forbids American companies from participating, even unknowingly, in bribery schemes in other countries, with a penalty of up to $2 million and up to five years in jail....

The Background

... This week, some of Trump’s critics moved forward with legal action. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, filed a lawsuit alleging that Trump’s business holdings violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which makes it illegal for government officials to “accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” ...

That Trump Tower Penthouse ...

That Resort in the Dominican Republic ...

That Chinese Trademark ...

That Meeting at Mar-a-Lago ...

That Defense Department Trump Tower Rental ...

That Red Cross Ball ...

That D.C. Labor Dispute ...

That Estate in Palm Beach ...

Those Expansion Plans ...

That Hotel in Vancouver ...

That Reality-Television Show ...

That Pipeline ...

Those HUD Grants ...

That Golf Course in Aberdeen ...

That Other Billionaire New York Real-Estate Developer ...

Those Indonesian Politicians ...

That Emirati Businessman ...

That Virginia Vineyard ...

That Las Vegas Labor Dispute ...

That Kuwaiti Event ...

Those Certificates of Divestiture ...

That Carrier Deal ...

That Blind-Trust Issue ...

Those Fannie and Freddie Investments ...

That Phone Call With Taiwan ...

That Deutsche Bank Debt ...

That Secret Service Detail

... Now that he will be president, he may be able to profit off of the Secret Service by virtue of the fact that he and his family will live in Trump Tower and fly in his private jets—which requires the agents tasked with guarding them to pay him rent and airfare....

That Property in Georgia (the Country) ...

That Phone Call With Erdogan ...

That Hotel in Washington, D.C. ...

That Argentinian Office Building ...

Those Companies in Saudi Arabia ...

That British Wind Farm ...

Those Indian Business Partners ...

That Envoy From the Philippines ...

Whoa! Most corrupt and anti-American administration ever? Of course, Trumpettes knew before the election that this was and would be a YUGE problem, they just didn't care.

[Vrede too]

Official Team Trump‏ Verified account
@TeamTrump

Capture the luck of the Irish with this Make America Great Again Hat. While supplies last! BUY NOW: http://bit.ly/2miQk6M #MAGA

The Internet Found Something Off About Trump's Official New Hats

@TeamTrump That's not a Shamrock! Make America Smart Again #MASA not #MAGA

Maybe @TeamTrump is trying to Make America 4-H Again?

@TeamTrump They’re going to go fast—get ready for #StPatricksDay by grabbing a green #AlternativeFacts t-shirt! http://hairybaby.com

President Trump’s St. Patrick’s Day Hat Got Flak for Its Design. Now It’s Gone From the Website

I wonder how many they made?

[Vrede too]

DISTRESS SIGNAL?? Sean Spicer's American flag lapel pin is upside down. What does he know that we don't??

Is Spicer's upside down flag lapel pin a distress signal? Blink twice if you need help, Sean.

Sean Spicer's American flag pin is upside down. Upside down flag is a distress symbol. Headline: Metaphor Delivers Press Conference.

UPSIDE DOWN FLAG PIN! SPICER IS COMPROMISED! INITIATE OPERATION SPICER EVAC!!!

i fixed ur flag pin for u sean

[Vrede too]

I don't understand why he is allowed to delete his tweets. Maybe his private tweets, but he deletes the ones that are the property of the US citizens

banni says that he's exclusively using his personal Android. Are some of his tweets from "POTUS" or whatever, or are they all from his longstanding personal account?

Looks like it doesn't matter.

Congress to Trump: Your tweet deletes might break the law
Members of the House Oversight Committee warn that the president's habit of deleting tweets may violate the Presidential Records Act.

Remember that trouble President Donald Trump had earlier this month when he was trying to spell "hear by" ... I mean "hearby" ... I mean hereby in a tweet about Rep. Nancy Pelosi's alleged close ties to Russia?

Well, it turns out his three attempts (final version posted below) -- and, more significantly, two deletions -- may have violated federal law.

That's according to Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Maryland Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings, chairman and ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, respectively. They sent a letter to the Trump administration Wednesday voicing broad concerns about the administration's record keeping habits and transparency issues when it comes to social media and other electronic forms of communication.

Specifically, they said Trump's habit of deleting tweets "could pose a violation to the Presidential Records Act" if the deleted tweets are not archived. They were referring to use of both Trump's personal @realDonaldTrump account and his official @POTUS account.

"Many of the messages sent from these accounts are likely to be presidential records and therefore must be preserved," they wrote.

The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

If so, he's routinely violating applicable government records law every time he deletes a tweet, as billy.pilgrim suggests.

... Lock him up.

[Vrede too]

Complicit - SNL