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Post by the Scribe on Apr 15, 2020 8:36:01 GMT
‘Constitutional Madness’: Backlash To ‘King Trump’ Claims At Senate Trial | MSNBC MSNBC 2.34M subscribers
In this “The Beat Breakdown: Trump on Trial”, MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber reports on the final day of Senate jurors posing their questions to both sides. Melber breaks down the key exchanges – including one with Sen. Collins, why Rep. Adam Schiff got heated, how the Trump defense is distracting from the real question and what happens if the pivotal witness vote is tied. (MSNBC Digital Exclusive.) Aired on 1/30/2020.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 15, 2020 8:36:37 GMT
Trump says John Kelly has a 'military and legal obligation' to 'keep his mouth shut'Christopher Wilson Senior Writer Yahoo NewsFebruary 13, 2020, 10:17 AM MST www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-john-kelly-mouth-shut-obligation-171752640.html
President Trump said his former chief of staff John Kelly needs to “keep his mouth shut” after he criticized the president during a public event Wednesday night.
“When I terminated John Kelly, which I couldn’t do fast enough, he knew full well that he was way over his head,” wrote Trump in a pair of tweets Thursday morning. “Being Chief of Staff just wasn’t for him. He came in with a bang, went out with a whimper, but like so many X’s, he misses the action & just can’t keep his mouth shut, which he actually has a military and legal obligation to do. His incredible wife, Karen, who I have a lot of respect for, once pulled me aside & said strongly that ‘John respects you greatly. When we are no longer here, he will only speak well of you.’ Wrong!”
Kelly criticized the president during a Q&A session at Drew University in New Jersey. Kelly stated that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who was dismissed last week from the National Security Council on Trump’s orders, was simply doing his duty when he reported on the president’s phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that was the basis of the impeachment inquiry.
Former White House chief of staff John Kelly and President Trump. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP, Evan Vucci/AP)
“He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave,” Kelly said of Vindman. “He went and told his boss what he just heard.”
Kelly was also critical of Trump’s intervention in the military justice system on behalf of Eddie Gallagher, the Navy SEAL who was convicted of posing with the corpse of an enemy combatant. Trump’s meddling to lessen Gallagher’s punishment led to the resignation of the secretary of the Navy. Kelly said, “The idea that the commander in chief intervened there, in my opinion, was exactly the wrong thing to do. Had I been there, I think I could have prevented it.”
Kelly also expressed doubts about Trump’s handling of negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“He will never give his nuclear weapons up,” Kelly said. “Again, President Trump tried — that’s one way to put it. But it didn’t work. I’m an optimist most of the time, but I’m also a realist, and I never did think Kim would do anything other than play us for a while, and he did that fairly effectively.”
Kelly, a former four-star general whose son was killed in action in Afghanistan, was Trump’s original appointee as secretary of homeland security. After Reince Priebus was fired as White House chief of staff in the summer of 2017, Kelly replaced him and served until January 2019, when Trump fired him after multiple stories of friction within the White House, including an April 2018 NBC News report that Kelly had called Trump an “idiot” multiple times. Kelly said he had been urged by his wife to take the job with the Trump administration.
During his comments, Kelly also mentioned immigration, an area in which he implemented many of the White House’s policies.
“In fact, they’re overwhelmingly good people,” said Kelly of immigrants, disputing Trump’s description. “They’re not all rapists and they’re not all murderers. And it’s wrong to characterize them that way. I disagreed with the president a number of times.”
While serving as homeland security chief, Kelly was in charge of the White House’s first Muslim travel bans. He also first floated the idea of using child separation at the border, mentioning the idea in a March 2017 interview with CNN. When asked if homeland security officials would separate children from their parents to deter illegal immigration, Kelly replied, “I am considering exactly that.” He reiterated this stance in a May 2018 interview with NPR, stating that it wasn’t cruel or heartless to separate families because “the children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.”
Kelly was a sometimes pugnacious and outspoken official, who refused to apologize to Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., for attacking a speech she had given, even after a videotape proved he had completely mischaracterized her remarks.
During Kelly’s tenure, outsiders viewed him as one of the “adults” in the administration who they hoped would restrain Trump’s impulsive governing style, along with Defense Secretary James Mattis, national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
All are now gone from the administration.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 15, 2020 8:37:08 GMT
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 15, 2020 8:37:34 GMT
So the DOJ policy says that a President can't be sued, indicted or investigated because it would interfere with his ability to govern the country, yet the president can sue anyone, anytime.Trump threatens to sue his investigators and demands Roger Stone case be 'thrown out'The Independent John T Bennett,The Independent•February 18, 2020 news.yahoo.com/trump-threatens-sue-investigators-demands-141057848.html news.yahoo.com/trump-threatens-lawsuits-over-mueller-134133626.html
Donald Trump is threatening to drop a string of lawsuits against those involved in investigations into his 2016 campaign and presidency, yet again weighing in on a federal criminal case as he thumbs his nose at concerns he is politicizing the Justice Department.
The president used several Tuesday morning tweets to suggest the case of his convicted friend and former adviser Roger Stone -- and any other one stemming from probes of all things Trump -- should be "thrown out." The judge in Mr Stone's case, Amy Berman Jackson, has set a Tuesday teleconference hearing with the Stone camp and federal prosecutors to discuss the status of his case.
www.independent.co.uk/topic/roger-stone
That set off a firestorm last week when Mr Trump wielded the power of his office post-Senate acquittal in a more muscular way by tweeting that the Justice Department should come down from a planned nine-year sentencing recommendation for Mr Stone on counts of lying to Congress and obstructing justice. www.independent.co.uk/topic/acquittal
But, in Mr Trump's telling, his longtime friend should soon be a free man.
He called the prosecutors in Mr Stone's case "Mueller prosecutors," referring to the Russia election meddling probe led by former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. That investigation concluded with Mr Mueller stopping shy of recommending Mr Trump broke any laws, but saying if wrongdoing had not occured his final report would have said so; it did not. (That final summary also stated Mr Mueller and his team found no direct cooperation between Mr Trump's 2016 campaign and Russians.) NO THATS NOT WHAT IT SAID. It said there wasn’t enough evidence to support a finding of a conspiracy under the legal definition of that term. "Recommending"? That's a lie also. No matter how you put it, it is lie to say Mueller did not find that Trump broke any laws. He cited 10 instances of obstruction of justice on Trump, and associated misuse of power in the conduct of the obstruction. And he cited impeachment as the remedy. That investigation concluded with Mr Mueller stopping shy of recommending Mr Trump broke any laws, but saying if wrongdoing had not occured his final report would have said so; it did not. www.independent.co.uk/topic/robert-s-mueller-iii
But that did not stop the president on Tuesday morning from contending that "the whole Mueller investigation was illegally set up based on a phony and now fully discredited Fake Dossier, lying and forging documents to the FISA Court, and many other things."
He did not provide supporting evidence as he added his view that the Mueller probe was a "fraudulent investigation" and "badly tainted," calling for it anything related to it to be "thrown out."
"The whole deal was a total SCAM. If I wasn't President, I'd be suing everyone all over the place..." Mr Trump claimed, before adding this threat: "....BUT MAYBE I STILL WILL. WITCH HUNT!"
But Democrats see the situation differently.
"Trump abused his power to coerce Ukraine into announcing investigations for his personal benefit by freezing military aid," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California tweeted last week. www.independent.co.uk/topic/adam-schiff
Mr Schiff and other Democrats also have panned Attorney General William Barr, who stepped in to back his department away from the nine-year sentencing recommendation after Mr Trump's tweet. (Mr Barr contends he thought there was an internal agreement within the agency to offer Ms Jackson options for a more "flexible" sentence for Mr Stone.)
"Barr admits he intervened in the sentencing of a man who lied to Congress to cover up for the President," Mr Schiff tweeted. "He's only upset that Trump's tweets made the political nature of his intervention obvious. Barr fools no one. He's a witting accomplice to Trump's attack on the rule of law.
Read more
Trump's executive power beyond 'anything Nixon could have imagined,' law professor claims news.yahoo.com/trumps-executive-power-beyond-anything-151740350.html?.tsrc=jtc_news_index
Trump attacks Obama as Bloomberg qualifies for first debate www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-news-live-latest-obama-2020-election-polls-twitter-a9341501.html
Obama trolls Trump on President's Day with comment about economy www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/obama-trump-twitter-trolling-president-day-tweet-economy-recession-recovery-act-latest-a9341316.html
Trump's new travel ban relies on agencies he has attacked www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-travel-ban-countries-when-inteligence-visa-lottery-muslim-a9341096.html
Trump 'complicated' things with Roger Stone tweets, president's lawyer www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-william-barr-roger-stone-sentence-trial-attorney-general-lawyer-a9340711.html
Federal judges' association calls emergency meeting after DOJ intervenes in case of Trump ally Roger Stone www.yahoo.com/now/federal-judges-association-calls-emergency-220244852.html
FIN
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Post by the Scribe on May 4, 2020 12:02:50 GMT
Gov. Andrew Cuomo: Trump is 'Not a King' | NowThis
NowThis News 703K subscribers
‘We don’t have King Trump, we have President Trump’ — Listen to Andrew Cuomo slam 45 for his management of the pandemic and suppression of state action.
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Post by the Scribe on May 14, 2020 18:41:06 GMT
Jeff Bezos owns Amazon. Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post. The Washington Post has been rather harsh in its criticism of Trump. Amazon uses the US postal service to ship tens of millions of packages each year. Trump wants to punish Amazon so he will use American taxpayer money to blackmail the USPS to hike shipping rates they charge Amazon, which will hurt Jeff Bezos. Any questions?
It is the Republican passage of the bill that insists USPS pre-fund 75% of its retirement liabilities that is the problem. Fix this and USPs is very solvent. Trump and his cronies have massive investments in FED EX and UPS. Get the post office out of package delivery and they make tons of money. Quadrupling the package delivery prices will take away a huge amount of business from the USPS, guarantee it collapses and increase their competitors stock prices by about 50%. Trump should make billion dollar companies like FedEx and UPS start paying some taxes but he and Republicans never will. Trump threatens to block aid to U.S. Postal Service if it doesn't hike prices for Amazon packagesfinance.yahoo.com/video/trump-threatens-block-aid-u-220709297.html Yahoo Finance Video Yahoo Finance VideoApril 24, 2020
President Trump said on April 24 that he would not approve a bailout for the Postal Service—which Congress has authorized—unless it raises package delivery fees to four times the current levels. Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman joins Jen Rogers, Myles Udland, and Akiko Fujita to discuss.
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Post by the Scribe on May 17, 2020 5:59:10 GMT
If, "The Radical Left is in total command & control of Facebook, of Instagram, Twitter and Google." then trump would be blocked from Twitter. Let's face it, the reason that these platforms lean towards the left is that they deal in facts and try to suppress deliberate lies and propaganda, so of course that puts them at odds with the White House and Fox News. Conservative "speak" is hate "speak" just as a matter of fact. If hate speech is not tolerated on those venues it has nothing to do with Liberal. It has to do with hate not being allowed. So the little whiny right wing should start their own web sites and internet providers and spew their hate there as much as they want. Just leave the rest of us ALONE. Trump threatens Twitter and Facebook over 'illegal situation' as US coronavirus death toll nears 90,000www.yahoo.com/news/trump-threatens-twitter-facebook-over-122500633.html The IndependentMay 16, 2020, 5:25 AM MST
Donald Trump has redirected White House messaging on Covid-19: REUTERS
Donald Trump has vowed to "remedy" what he called the "command and control" of social media and web giants Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google by what he called the "Radical Left". www.independent.co.uk/topic/DonaldTrump www.independent.co.uk/topic/Facebook www.independent.co.uk/topic/Twitter www.independent.co.uk/topic/instagram www.independent.co.uk/topic/Google
Commenting on a video showing part of a speech by Michelle Malkin, who has been criticised for backing white nationalist activists, the president said the websites were involved in an "illegal situation", although he declined to say what that was. www.independent.co.uk/topic/michelle-malkin
He wrote: "The Radical Left is in total command & control of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google. The Administration is working to remedy this illegal situation. Stay tuned, and send names & events. Thank you Michelle!"
Ms Malkin was dropped by the Young America's Foundation, a conservative youth group, following her defence of Nick Fuentes, who has been accused of being a Holocaust denier and white nationalist. www.independent.co.uk/topic/nick-fuentes
Mr Trump made his comments on Saturday morning as part of a string of attacks on the media, his predecessor Barack Obama and other political opponents. www.independent.co.uk/topic/BarackObama
Meanwhile the death toll from the coronavirus in the US stood at more than 88,000, with 1.4 million cases.
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Post by the Scribe on May 17, 2020 12:24:22 GMT
When someone with no morals, ethics, humanity, or respect for the law gains power, this is what you get. The Senators, under Moscow Mitch refused to reign him in so now, he thinks he is king. Hope we survive until the election.Trump's emergency powers worry some senators, legal expertswww.yahoo.com/now/trumps-emergency-powers-worry-senators-041655629.html Associated Press DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press•May 15, 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — The day he declared the COVID-19 pandemic a national emergency, President Donald Trump made a cryptic offhand remark.
“I have the right to do a lot of things that people don’t even know about," he said at the White House.
Trump wasn’t just crowing. Dozens of statutory authorities become available to any president when national emergencies are declared. They are rarely used, but Trump last month stunned legal experts and others when he claimed — mistakenly — that he has “total” authority over governors in easing COVID-19 guidelines.
That prompted 10 senators to look into how sweeping Trump believes his emergency powers are.
They have asked to see this administration's Presidential Emergency Action Documents, or PEADs. The little-known, classified documents are essentially planning papers.
The documents don’t give a president authority beyond what's in the Constitution. But they outline what powers a president believes that the Constitution gives him to deal with national emergencies. The senators think the documents would provide them a window into how this White House interprets presidential emergency powers.
“Somebody needs to look at these things,” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said in a telephone interview. “This is a case where the president can declare an emergency and then say, ‘Because there’s an emergency, I can do this, this and this.’"
King, seven Democrats and one Republican sent a letter late last month to acting national intelligence director Richard Grenell asking to be briefed on any existing PEADs. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wrote a similar letter to Attorney General William Barr and White House counsel Pat Cipollone.
“The concern is that there could be actions taken that would violate individual rights under the Constitution," such as limiting due process, unreasonable search and seizure and holding individuals without cause, King said.
“I’m merely speculating. It may be that we get these documents and there’s nothing untoward in their checks and balances and everything is above board and reasonable.''
Joshua Geltzer, visiting professor of law at Georgetown University, said there is a push to take a look at these documents because there is rising distrust for the Trump administration's legal interpretations in a way he hasn't seen in his lifetime.
The most publicized example was Trump’s decision last year to declare the security situation along the U.S.-Mexico border a national emergency. That decision allowed him to take up to $3.6 billion from military construction projects to finance wall construction beyond the miles that lawmakers had been willing to fund. Trump’s move skirted the authority of Congress, which by law has the power to spend money in the nation’s wallet.
“I worry about other things he might call an emergency,” Geltzer said. “I think around the election itself in November — that’s where there seems to be a lot of potential for mischief with this president.”
The lawmakers made their request just days after Trump made his startling claim on April 13 that he had the authority to force states to reopen for business amid the pandemic.
“When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total,” Trump said, causing a backlash from some governors and legal experts. Trump later tweeted that while some people say it's the governors, not the president's decision, "Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect.”
Trump later backtracked on his claim of “total" authority and agreed that states have the upper hand in deciding when to end their lockdowns. But it was just the latest from a president who has been stretching existing statutory authorities “to, if not beyond, their breaking point," said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas.
Questions about Trump's PEADs went unanswered by the Justice Department, National Security Council and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of a national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, said PEADs have not been subject to congressional oversight for decades. She estimates that there are 50 to 60 of these documents, which include draft proclamations, executive orders and proposed legislation that could be swiftly introduced to “assert broad presidential authority” in national emergencies.
She said the Eisenhower administration had PEADs outlining how it might respond to a possible Soviet nuclear attack. According to the Brennan Center, PEADs issued up through the 1970s included detention of U.S. citizens suspected of being subversives, warrantless searches and seizures and the imposition of martial law.
“A Department of Justice memorandum from the Lyndon B. Johnson administration discusses a presidential emergency action document that would impose censorship on news sent abroad,” Goitein wrote in an op-ed with lawyer Andrew Boyle published last month in The New York Times.
"The memo notes that while no ‘express statutory authority’ exists for such a measure, ‘it can be argued that these actions would be legal in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear attack based on the president’s constitutional powers to preserve the national security.”’
Goitein said she especially worries about any orders having to do with military deployment, including martial law.
“You can imagine a situation where he (Trump) engineers a crisis that leads to domestic violence, which then becomes a pretext for martial law,” said Goitein, who insists she's simply playing out worst-case scenarios. "What I worry about is the extreme interpretation under which he asserts the authority to declare martial law and take over all the functions of government, including running the elections."
She also wonders if there is a PEAD outlining steps the president could take to respond to a serious cyberattack. Would the president aggressively interpret telecommunications law and flip an internet kill switch, or restrain domestic internet traffic? she asks.
Bobby Chesney, associate dean at the University of Texas School of Law, said some fears might be exaggerated because while Trump makes off-the-cuff assertions of authority far beyond past presidents, he doesn't necessarily follow up with action.
Says Chesney: “His actions don’t match the rhetoric always — or even often.” comments
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Post by the Scribe on May 24, 2020 23:10:46 GMT
Donald Trump Acts Like He’s a King
Republicans for the Rule of Law
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 6, 2020 8:38:17 GMT
Trump displays all the characteristics of today's RepubliCONServatives. Enabled by Supreme Court justices chosen by the CONFederalist Society and Moscow Mitch & CONpany in the Senate, fascism is the least of it. That's why they love him.
Audio leaked of Trump getting humiliated by a governor on a call with ALL 50 GOVERNORS
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 10, 2020 20:26:34 GMT
"Donald Trump’s presidential campaign sent a cease and desist letter to CNN demanding that they retract and apologize for a poll showing Joe Biden with a 14-point lead in the presidential race" - Trump says that he doesn't believe in polls but he will recite them when they are in his favor.
The polls that should have Trump and his base really worried are the ones from Fox News, Rasmussen, and Quinnipiac types, who all strongly support him, but whose participants also strongly oppose Trump. It's one thing to have left leaning institutions opposing Trump, but when his own cheerleaders can't get in line behind him, it doesn't say much about his overall chances.
Why Donald Trump's Poll Numbers Are Seriously Slipping www.yahoo.com/news/why-donald-trumps-poll-numbers-192700278.html Donald Trump’s Campaign Fires Off Cease-And-Desist Letter To CNN Over Poll That Shows Joe Biden With Wide Leadwww.yahoo.com/entertainment/donald-trump-campaign-fires-off-182855820.html Ted Johnson Deadline June 10, 2020, 11:28 AM MST
President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter to CNN demanding that it retract and apologize for a poll showing Joe Biden with a 14-point lead in the race for the White House.
“We stand by our poll,” a CNN spokesperson said.
A Trump campaign spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment, but in the letter, senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis and chief operating officer Michael Glassner write to CNN chief Jeff Zucker that the poll was “designed to mislead American voters through a biased questionnaire and skewed sampling.”
“Media polls such as these are designed to manufacture an anti-Trump narrative and misinform and mislead actual voters,” they wrote. “It’s a stunt and a phony poll to cause voter suppression, stifle momentum and enthusiasm for the President, and present a false view generally of the actual support across America for the President.”
Irked by the poll’s results, Trump announced Monday that he had retained pollster John McLaughlin to do an analysis of the poll.
In their letter, Ellis and Glassner wrote: “According to our independent assessment via the highly respected McLaughlin & Associates, ‘The CNN poll out today is another skewed anti-Trump poll of only 25% Republican. It’s a poll of 1,259 adults — not even registered voters, let alone likely voters. Also, it was done between June 2nd and 5th, before the great economic news from last Friday.’
Further, the questions and topics selected likely biased the poll further.”
Trump often has lashed out at polls as “fake,” including those conducted by Fox News. Other polls also show Trump falling behind Biden, some with a smaller but still significant gap. The RealClearPolitics national average of polls on Wednesday shows Biden with an 8.1-point lead.
The campaign requested that CNN retract the poll, which was conducted by SSRS, “by publishing a full, fair, and conspicuous retraction, apology, and clarification to correct its misleading conclusions.” They also claim that the poll is defamatory and misleading.
In a story on the Trump campaign letter, CNN.com noted that “while it’s accurate that 1,259 adults were reached on landlines or cell phones by a live interviewer for the survey, the 14-point margin by which Trump is trailing Biden came from a question posed only to 1,125 registered voters. It’s typical for polling to sample registered voters rather than likely ones at this stage of the race, as it’s difficult to project whether voters will participate in an election that is five months away.” The cable news network also noted that the 25% sample of Republicans is a percentage that is “consistent with several other major polls that use live telephone interviews, which provide the most reliable snapshot of the race.”
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 25, 2020 1:18:48 GMT
Advisors Instruct William Barr To Avoid Referring To Trump As ‘My Liege’ During Interviews WASHINGTON—Advisors to Donald Trump’s attorney general William Barr reportedly instructed him to avoid referring to the president as “my liege” in any public statements. “Mr. Barr, we recommend you eliminate the phrase ‘His Excellency’ from your vocabulary altogether,” said Chief Advisor Graham Johnson, who urged Barr to maintain an appearance of impartiality by abstaining from lying prostrate on the floor and muttering “long may he reign” whenever the president’s name was mentioned. “We want to make sure you don’t appear bias regarding presidential authority, so to that end, calling him ‘The President’ or simply ‘Mr. Trump’ is sufficient—there’s no need to add titles like ‘The Most High, Most Sacred, Most Powerful.’ Additionally, we’d suggest you keep any opinions about Trump having been ordained from on high by God himself close to the vest.” Johnson further cautioned Barr that it could lead to poor optics if he greeted Trump during their next meeting by kissing the hem of the president’s pant leg and swearing his undying fealty to the one true ruler.
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Post by the Scribe on Sept 3, 2020 20:55:50 GMT
If THIS isn't an abuse of power I don't know what is!Trump directs federal agencies to defund 4 Democratic cities, other 'anarchist jurisdictions'www.yahoo.com/news/trump-directs-federal-agencies-defund-062250606.html Peter Weber The Week September 2, 2020, 11:22 PM MST
President Trump released a five-page memo Wednesday directing federal agencies to find ways to cut billions in federal grants to four solidly Democratic cities and determine which other "anarchist jurisdictions" he could defund. Trump specifically targeted New York City; Washington, D.C.; Seattle, Washington; and Portland, Oregon. He claimed these cities have become "lawless zones" that "permit anarchy, violence, and destruction." www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/us/politics/trump-funding-cities.html
Trump gave Attorney General William Barr 14 days to identify these "anarchist jurisdictions," and his given criteria include any area that "disempowers or defunds police departments" or "forbids the police force from intervening to restore order amid widespread or sustained violence or destruction." The Office of Management and Budget has 30 days to direct agencies to find ways to restrict federal grants to these justifications, which Trump doesn't name, "possibly for legal reasons," the New York Post reports.
nypost.com/2020/09/02/trump-orders-review-to-defund-nyc-other-anarchist-cities/
As part of his campaign strategy "to shift the public's attention away from his administration's failed response to the coronavirus pandemic," Trump "has repeatedly sought to paint cities as hellscapes that only he can save, regardless of how limited the violent outbreaks have been during broader protests against acts of brutality by police officers against Black people," The New York Times notes. His latest "move is almost certain to face legal challenges." www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/us/politics/trump-funding-cities.html
The leaders of the four targeted cities did in fact threaten legal action, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) called Trump's "illegal" order another "cheap" and "gratuitous" attempt by a wannabe "king" to "kill New York City," adding that Trump "better have an army if he thinks he's going to walk down the street in New York," their shared home town. www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/us/politics/trump-funding-cities.html
The Washington Post's Paul Farhi pointed out that "cutting funding to punish cities that have defunded police" will probably "lead cities to ... further defund police," due to lack of funds. But these cities were never going to vote for Trump, and FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver points out that Trump, perversely, doesn't need them to.
theweek.com/speedreads/935516/nate-silvers-analysis-bidens-electoral-college-chances-renews-calls-repeal-altogether
If Joe Biden gets huge wins in Washington, New York, and Oregon, it won't help his "Electoral College chances at all," Silver notes.
More stories from theweek.com
Attorney General Barr won't agree it's illegal to vote twice, as Trump urged, claims ignorance of state laws theweek.com/speedreads/935580/attorney-general-barr-wont-agree-illegal-vote-twice-trump-urged-claims-ignorance-state-laws 7 scathing cartoons about Trump's divisive Kenosha response theweek.com/articles/935077/7-scathing-cartoons-about-trumps-divisive-kenosha-response Fauci urges Americans to help prevent another COVID-19 surge after Labor Day weekend theweek.com/speedreads/935681/fauci-urges-americans-help-prevent-another-covid19-surge-after-labor-day-weekend
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Post by the Scribe on Sept 7, 2020 2:14:14 GMT
Crybully King Trump should pick his battles more carefully. NYC is easily the biggest most traveled international hub in the nation. It is a sitting duck for pandemics coming from outside the USA through no fault of their own. But because of politics and deflection of his own mismanagement the king should try to help rather than criticize or threaten. That is the problem with these cons and Trump...blame blame blame everyone else for conditions you yourself have caused...from the free market trickle down scam that sent our jobs overseas to hateful right wing rhetoric causing their much hoped for race war.Trump Can’t Defund New Yorknews.yahoo.com/trump-t-defund-york-220016156.html National Review The Editors, National Review•September 6, 2020
Andrew Cuomo can relax. President Trump’s theatrical threat to defund New York and other jurisdictions wracked by rioting isn’t going to amount to much.
In the middle of an intense feud with Cuomo, the president signed a memorandum last week purporting to punish select cities for their ineffectual response to disorder. The spirit of the memorandum runs counter to the Constitution, which gives Congress the spending power, although the letter of the memo is limited to the point of meaninglessness.
Addressed to Attorney General William Barr and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Russell Vought, the memorandum orders a review of federal funding sent to state and local governments that are, as the memorandum puts it, “permitting anarchy, violence, and destruction in American cities.” Specifically, Trump admonishes the leadership in Seattle, Portland, New York City, and Washington, D.C., for their failure to reestablish order within their respective jurisdictions, resulting in “persistent and outrageous acts of violence and destruction.”
Trump directs the attorney general to compile this list by evaluating whether local officials have stopped their “police force from intervening to restore order,” “withdrawn law enforcement protection from a geographical area or structure,” “disempower[ed] or defund[ed] police departments,” or “unreasonably refus[ed] to accept offers of law enforcement assistance from the Federal Government.” States and localities places on the list are deemed “anarchist jurisdictions.”
The director of the OMB is to then use the attorney general’s determinations to make some of his own. He must “issue guidance to the heads of agencies on restricting eligibility of or otherwise disfavoring, to the maximum extent permitted by law, anarchist jurisdictions in the receipt of Federal grants that the agency has sufficient lawful discretion to restrict or otherwise disfavor anarchist jurisdictions from receiving.”
The key phrases are “to the maximum extent permitted by law,” and “sufficient lawful discretion,” which will, if followed, prevent any wholesale defunding of the cities in question.
The administration’s attempted defunding of disorderly cities will probably follow the course of its attempted defunding of sanctuary cities. The administration found that there wasn’t much funding it could plausibly try to cut off. Even the relatively minor grants it targeted have been caught up in the courts, which have often ruled that the executive can’t put conditions on funding that Congress hasn’t already written into law.
If the memorandum ends up being only a glorified press release, that’s better than the alternative, but it’d be even better if the president didn’t purport to have powers that he doesn’t.
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Post by the Scribe on Jan 25, 2021 13:46:28 GMT
Trump to use threat of the new Patriot Party to pressure Republican senators not to convict him in an impeachment trial: Reportwww.yahoo.com/news/trump-threat-patriot-party-pressure-130850293.html Tom Porter Sun, January 24, 2021, 6:08 AM
President Donald Trump addresses guests at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on January 20, 2021. ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images
Trump is threatening to create a new political party, reported The Washington Post.
He plans to use the Patriot Party as leverage over GOP senators, so they don't convict him in his impeachment trial.
Unlike other former presidents, Trump has signaled that he will continue to play an active role in politics.
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Former President Donald Trump is threatening to create a new political party which he can use as leverage to pressure senators not to convict him in his impeachment trial, The Washington Post reported.
Sources close to the former president told the Post that he has been discussing his motivations for planning to start the Patriot Party.
While most former presidents largely keep a low profile after leaving office, Trump has signaled that he could continue to play an active role in the battle for ascendancy among moderate and hardline factions of the GOP following his election defeat.
Trump's hold over the GOP grassroots means that senators face the prospects of losing their seats if Trump instructs supporters not to back them.
They reportedly include Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third most powerful Republican in Congress, who, with 10 other Republicans, voted to impeach Trump on January 13, and state GOP officials who stood up to his bid to overturn the election, such as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. www.businessinsider.com/after-being-taunted-by-president-georgia-gov-kemp-backs-trump-2020-12?utm_source=yahoo.com&utm_medium=referral
Trump's refusal to accept his loss in the presidential election, and his role in instigating the Capitol riot by supporters on January 6 in which two people were killed, has threatened a split in the GOP.
Some lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have backed Trump's impeachment following the riots, while other GOP lawmakers and millions of grassroots Republicans have remained steadfastly loyal.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Saturday said that Trump's impeachment trial would begin on February 8. If Trump is convicted of inciting the January 6 insurrection, he could be permanently barred from office, ending his hopes of continuing in politics. www.businessinsider.com/republican-lawmakers-rethink-trump-impeachment-election-biden-corporate-funding-2021-1?utm_source=yahoo.com&utm_medium=referral
McConnell, along with a small group of GOP senators, is open to convicting the former president. However, it is increasingly unlikely there will be enough GOP support to secure the 2/3 majority necessary for conviction.
Some lawmakers reportedly fear the prospect of reprisals from Trump supporters if they publicly oppose him. www.businessinsider.com/republicans-say-some-back-trump-fraud-claims-fear-violence-base-2021-1?utm_source=yahoo.com&utm_medium=referral
But pressure on the GOP is now mounting from a new direction. One expert told Insider that Republicans who refuse to convict Trump could alienate wealthy corporate donors. www.businessinsider.com/republican-lawmakers-rethink-trump-impeachment-election-biden-corporate-funding-2021-1?utm_source=yahoo.com&utm_medium=referral
Read the original article on Business Insider
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