The Trump Presidency – 2016

[sabotai]

I was thinking of becoming a paid protester, but after looking at the numbers, my pay from Al Gore for spreading AGW propaganda online is still higher.

[RainMaker]

Wall is to start in El Paso. Does Congress have to approve funding for it?

Trump border wall to start in El Paso, 2 sites in Arizona, California

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Wall is to start in El Paso. Does Congress have to approve funding for it?

Yes, though he could probably pull funds from somewhere else in the homeland security budget to at least start it. He'd need congress to give him money at some point.

[Atocep]

What are the odds the wall is ever finished?

[Easy Mac]

So this is hell.

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by Atocep

Yes, though he could probably pull funds from somewhere else in the homeland security budget to at least start it. He'd need congress to give him money at some point.

So he'll essentially make America less secure in order to build a useless structure. Makes sense.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Atocep

What are the odds the wall is ever finished?

A wall across the whole border? I'd say slim to none. I think they'll patch up some areas and build some walls in trouble areas and claim they "built the wall".

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by Atocep

What are the odds the wall is ever finished?

2%

[Radii]

Originally Posted by bronconick

2%

I think that's high if we're literally talking about a wall covering the entire border.

[Edward64]

I think one way or another a Trump wall will be built. Regardless of what the wall turns out to be (complete end-to-end wall or partial wall), he'll explain it away if needed and claim victory anyway.

I'll bet its higher than 2%.

Let's get started! I want to see how this turns out.

[stevew]

Phase one of the wall is supposedly 26 or so miles. Which I immediately had the semi racist thought that Mexico was going to start challenging the Kenyan's stronghold on the Olympic Marathon.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by stevew

Phase one of the wall is supposedly 26 or so miles. Which I immediately had the semi racist thought that Mexico was going to start challenging the Kenyan's stronghold on the Olympic Marathon.

So last September, I ran the Long Beach Marathon and about half way through strained my knee and had to walk the rest. The back end of the marathon was being run back along the path toward the finish line. And the first place guy was coming along the other way not long after I hurt my knee. Sure enough, it was a Kenyan or Nigerian runner.

I briefly debated the merits of crossing the rope to the other path and diving at his knees. Pathetically, though, I was pretty sure I would miss on the bum knee.

[digamma]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

Sure enough, it was a Kenyan or Nigerian runner.

Wrong side of the continent.

[Shkspr]

Originally Posted by stevew

Phase one of the wall is supposedly 26 or so miles. Which I immediately had the semi racist thought that Mexico was going to start challenging the Kenyan's stronghold on the Olympic Marathon.

Hey, when the wall gets to 60 miles or so, watch out.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by digamma

Wrong side of the continent.

Correct. I was thinking Ethiopian.

[mckerney]

Okla. AG's office confirms Pruitt used private email for state business

It is not illegal to use a private email account for state business, as long as those records are included in searches for public documents.

However, the revelation is in direct conflict with Pruitt’s written and oral testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee during the confirmation process. Pruitt, who is now the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, told lawmakers he had never used private email for state business.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., asked Pruitt directly, “Have you ever conducted business using your personal email accounts, nonofficial Oklahoma attorney general email accounts, text messages, instant messenger, voicemails, or any other medium?”

“I use only my official OAG [Office of the Attorney General] email address and government-issued phone to conduct official business,” Pruitt replied.

Lock him up?

[CrescentMoonie]

Who is Nils Bildt?

Fox News literally called someone a Swedish Defense and National Security Advisor despite nobody in the Swedish government having any idea who he is. Apparently this was done solely to feed the narrative to their idiot viewers that Trump's comments weren't as bad as they really were.

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by mckerney

Okla. AG's office confirms Pruitt used private email for state business



Lock him up?

It's just OK, no one really cares about a state full of earthquakes.

[Easy Mac]

An old high school friend told Nancy Pelosi to get off TV and go to church this AM. I guess she was on a morning show.

Doesn't that just mean the FB friend was just watching TV and not at church at the same time?

[Easy Mac]

So Trump eats well done steaks with ketchup? I think that should piss off his base more than if he gave a hug to a Muslim Mexican illegal.

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

So Trump eats well done steaks with ketchup? I think that should piss off his base more than if he gave a hug to a Muslim Mexican illegal.

It's the most disgusting thing about him I've heard of yet.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

So Trump eats well done steaks with ketchup? I think that should piss off his base more than if he gave a hug to a Muslim Mexican illegal.

#NotMyPresident

[Julio Riddols]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

So Trump eats well done steaks with ketchup? I think that should piss off his base more than if he gave a hug to a Muslim Mexican illegal.

He has the refinement of a 6 year old, it makes sense.

[larrymcg421]

The ketchup part doesn't bother me at all, because if you order it medium well or higher, then you might as well smother it in ketchup or some kind of sauce.

[kingfc22]

And healthcare is complicated. Who knew?

In other news, the sky is blue.

[bbgunn]

Dubya says the media is “indispensable to democracy" and questions need to be answered regarding the Trump administration's connections to Russia, and now people are calling Bush a "leftist", part of the "establishment" and an Obama supporter. My oh my.

George W. Bush undercuts Donald Trump after staying silent on Barack Obama - Washington Times

[Groundhog]

Left without comment...

Kellyanne Conway checks her phone after taking a photo of President Donald Trump and leaders of black universities, colleges in Oval Office pic.twitter.com/MgVhCoJFuC

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 28, 2017

[Easy Mac]

Evidently he says in a Fox News interview that Obama is organizing the protests and leaks (with possibly the most "leading" question ever). I feel like if you phrased it right, you could get him to agree that mole people live under the white house.

[Easy Mac]

See guys, segregation was really just proto-school choice.

adam harris on Twitter: "Inbox: @BetsyDeVosED statement on today's meeting with HBCU leaders https://t.co/J7SvKFjlcB"

How is this our government in 2017?

[JPhillips]

Colored only water fountains were an example of America's entrepreneurial spirit!

[Ryche]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

Left without comment...

Kellyanne Conway checks her phone after taking a photo of President Donald Trump and leaders of black universities, colleges in Oval Office pic.twitter.com/MgVhCoJFuC

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 28, 2017

She had just taken a photo of the group with her phone.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Ryche

She had just taken a photo of the group with her phone.

Yeah tbh checking if a photo is decent is something everyone does surely ?

(much as I detest her approach to media relations etc. - I don't see any scandal here)

[Easy Mac]

I find it disturbing that she's sitting on the couch like a 7 year old girl. You're in the Presiden't office.

[molson]

Ya, let's just focus on the illegal conduct of the administration and not worry so much about someone checking kneeling on a sofa and checking their phone. Remember when some Republicans got in a tizzy when Obama was photographed with his feet on the oval office desk? If you're followed around almost 24/7 you're going to have casual non camera-friendly moments. I think we're going to see a LOT of those this administration when the media has no reason to show the respect that they might usually show for the office.

[lungs]

Yeah, I think I'm a little more worried about the $54 billion defense spending increase he wants. How much fucking money do we need to spend on "defense"?

[Ben E Lou]

Trump's guests tonight will be families of people killed by illegals, indicating that there will be a focus on justifying those areas of his policies.

I have no idea the answer to this, and don't have time to look it up the rest of today; how does the murder rate among undocumented immigrants compare to the general population and to those with similar income?

[Kodos]

Hate Conway, but who really gives a crap about how she sits on the couch?

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Hate Conway, but who really gives a crap about how she sits on the couch?

Its like Nicole Kidman's clapping for me. Famous person does normal thing weirdly.

[AENeuman]

Still trying to wrap my head around this literal vs serious interpretation of trump. When he said I have a great plan to replace aca and a secret plan to defeat isis, those were taken seriously by his voters, but not literally? So his voters knew he didn't have a plan, but he would listen to people who align with views? (Free market and hawkish in this case)

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Trump's guests tonight will be families of people killed by illegals, indicating that there will be a focus on justifying those areas of his policies.

I have no idea the answer to this, and don't have time to look it up the rest of today; how does the murder rate among undocumented immigrants compare to the general population and to those with similar income?

I think the study was just general crime, with the obvious caveat that they tried to adjust for their undocumented status and that it could be under-reported to not get themselves deported for reporting a crime. But the study found that crime is actually lower in areas with larger illegal immigrant population, even adjusting for under-reporting.


There was a podcast that broke the study down about a month ago, but I can't recall which one it was that I was listening to.

Immigration and crime: What does the research say?
Urban crime rates and the changing face of immigration: Evidence across four decades: Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice: Vol 15, No 1

[NobodyHere]

I wish those articles would distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants.

[CrescentMoonie]

There's not much that focuses on legal vs illegal, but Cato argues that the rate is consistent across the two populations.

[PilotMan]

Education Secretary DeVos: [Sound Of Me Spitting Out Coffee, Falling Out Of Chair]

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have done this since their founding. They started from the fact that there were too many students in America who did not have equal access to education. They saw that the system wasn’t working, that there was an absence of opportunity, so they took it upon themselves to provide the solution.
HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice. They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality. Their success has shown that more options help students flourish.

Wtf kind of drugs is this administration on that they decided that this was a totally normal line of thinking in regards to their platform? As the article breaks down...

I dunno, it’s a historically deep competition, but ... this might be the worst and most offensive thing a Trump administration clown has said*, so far? I kind of think it is!

*In fact, this statement is so batshit, bugfuck crazy that—no discredit to Adam Harris whatsoever—at first it seemed quite literally unbelievable. I made a Department of Education flack email it to me directly just to confirm Harris hadn’t been the victim of a prank.
There’s the obvious reason, of course, which is that this is an absurd and nightmarish vision of school choice. The HBCU system has its roots in racial segregation, arising from the practical unavailability of higher education for black students in the years after the Civil War. The functional choice HBCUs gave black students at the time of their founding was between black school and no school—which is to say, their advent did not provide black students with meaningful school choice at all. Calling them pioneers of school choice is like pointing to the construction of a homeless shelter as a landmark achievement in affordable housing.

[Easy Mac]

In the last day he said Obama is behind the protests, Democrats are behind the Jewish bomb threats, and that the military is to blame for the SEAL's death in Yemen. I don't know that you can really quantify DeVos' release as the craziest thing that's been said in the last 24 hours, let alone the last 39 days.

Is there a group they've managed not to insult so far? They've gone after the press, FBI, CIA, military, teachers, liberals, LBGTQ, hispanics, jews, blacks, Europeans, Australians, Muslims/middle-easterns... There's children and straight-white-Republican males, that's really all that's left to insult.

[Atocep]

Claiming anything is offensive about this administration just excites the base even more.

The DeVos press release is ignorant on a level I can't believe came from a U.S. President's administration. But hey, she wants to do something different so it has to be better.

The comment by Trump that claimed at the same time that his administration has the most respected generals in decades while placing all of the blame for the SEAL's death on them was incredible. I don't know how else to describe it.

This administration continues to operate on a level the rest of us just don't understand yet.

[larrymcg421]

In the race for most offensive things the administration has said, I think this is an early lock to make the playoffs...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/poli...icle-1.2984866

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

In the race for most offensive things the administration has said, I think this is an early lock to make the playoffs...

Trump suggests Jewish community is spreading anti-Semitic threats - NY Daily News

He's probably just getting his information from here (please note, I can't prove this site won't infect you with Russian malware or stupidity):

Shocking List Of Official Proven False Flag Attacks - Your News Wire

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Hate Conway, but who really gives a crap about how she sits on the couch?

I don't give a crap how she sits on a couch generally, I just think that in her capacity in that room it's incredibly unprofessional.

[Jas_lov]

How will Trump sell a pathway to citizenship to his base, or will they not care if they get their wall.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Jas_lov

How will Trump sell a pathway to citizenship to his base, or will they not care if they get their wall.

He won't. Fox News will run a story on it that will be mildly critical and he'll change his mind.