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PoliGAF 2017 |OT6| Made this thread during Harvey because the ratings would be higher

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C

chadskin

Member
New, long WashPost palace intrigue story out ... I think the main takeaways are a) that, as described (and as many expected), Trump and Kelly are on an "inevitable collision course" and b) Tillerson's departure was described by people close to Trump as "imminent".

On Kelly:
Behind the scenes during a summer of crisis, however, Trump appears to pine for the days when the Oval Office was a bustling hub of visitors and gossip, over which he presided as impresario. He fumes that he does not get the credit he thinks he deserves from the media, nor the allegiance from fellow Republican leaders he is owed. He boasts about his presidency in superlatives, but confidants privately fret about his suddenly dark moods.

And some of Trump's friends fear the short-tempered president is on an inevitable collision course with White House chief of staff John F. Kelly.

Trump chafes at some of the retired Marine Corps general's moves to restrict access to him since taking the job almost a month ago, according to several people close to the president. They run counter to Trump's love of spontaneity and brashness, prompting some Trump loyalists to derisively dub Kelly ”the church lady" because they consider him strict and morally superior.

”He's having a very hard time," one friend who spoke with Trump this week said of the president. ”He doesn't like the way the media's handling him. He doesn't like how Kelly's handling him. He's turning on people that are very close to him."
Click to expand...
The changes are largely welcomed by senior administration officials, who say the president's time is too valuable to be wasted by chitchat and hangers-on.

But the president sometimes defies — and even resents — the new structure. He has been especially sensitive to the way Kelly's rigid structure is portrayed in the media, and strives to disabuse people of the notion that he is being managed. Trump continues to call business friends and outside advisers, including former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, from his personal phone when Kelly is not around, according to people with knowledge of the calls.
Click to expand...
Kelly has told colleagues he has no intention of controlling what Trump says or tweets. — and though he has tried to manage the information the president receives, Kelly recognizes that there are limits to what he can do, according to White House officials.

”The president can turn on the television, the president can call people and the president can read the newspaper," said one Republican close to the White House. This person said the onus is on the president, not his staff, to control his impulses.
Click to expand...

On Tillerson:
On Tillerson, Trump has come to see his top diplomat's approach to world affairs as ”totally establishment," in the words of one Trump associate. Several people close to Trump said they would be surprised if Tillerson stays in his post past his one-year mark in January. They hinted that his departure may come far sooner, with one describing it as ”imminent."

And some who have recently seen Tillerson say the former ExxonMobil chief executive — unaccustomed to taking orders from a superior, let alone one as capricious as Trump — also seems to be ready to end his State Department tenure. Tillerson has grumbled privately to Kelly about Trump's recent controversies, according to two people familiar with their relationship.

Others, however, caution that Tillerson remains fully enmeshed in the administration. After lunching with the president on Monday, Tillerson sat in the front row of Trump's joint press conference with president of Finland and was a key member of Cabinet discussions focused on handling Hurricane Harvey.
Click to expand...

More here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...b32d72-8d97-11e7-91d5-ab4e4bb76a3a_story.html
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
Weren't people expecting Kelly to stop Trump from being such a fuck-up? And Trump already wants to get rid of him.

Stop trying to make fetch happen. Stop trying to make presidential Trump happen. It's not happening.
 
P

Poodlestrike

Banned
Aaron Strife said:
Weren't people expecting Kelly to stop Trump from being such a fuck-up? And Trump already wants to get rid of him.

Stop trying to make fetch happen. Stop trying to make presidential Trump happen. It's not happening.
Click to expand...

I would actually argue that the batshit has ramped up since Kelly took over. DACA, ACA sabotage finally going forward, the Arpaio pardon, Phoenix, Charlottesville...
 
M

Mario

Sidhe / PikPok
VendettaRed07 said:
This is what they do with everything.

Gut government program funding.

See, ____ program doesn't work.
Click to expand...

One example of that was the Republican Congress not providing/cutting security budgets for foreign diplomats/consulates.

So, Benghazi was all Clintons fault.

The budget restraints/decreases hardly get raised in the Benghazi conversation while they most certainly would have been a contributing factor.
 
F

Futurevoid

Member
S

sc0la

Unconfirmed Member
Aaron Strife said:
Weren't people expecting Kelly to stop Trump from being such a fuck-up? And Trump already wants to get rid of him.

Stop trying to make fetch happen. Stop trying to make presidential Trump happen. It's not happening.
Click to expand...
Stop trying to make "stop trying to make fetch happen. It's not going to happen" happen. It's not going to happen.
 
P

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Please allow me to share a trip into the mind and "logic" of a red state official who desperately wants to suppress minority voters:

http://www.wthr.com/article/no-corr...ing-and-voter-turnout-secretary-of-state-says

INDIANAPOLIS (Statehouse File) — As far as Secretary of State Connie Lawson is concerned, the candidates and the issues, not necessarily the number of early polling sites, drive voter turnout.

Rather, she said to a group of lawmakers Wednesday at the Interim Study Committee on Elections, early voting benefits people who vote in every election.

“We’re trying to reach the infrequent voters,” Lawson said. “The early voting really affects frequent voters more — it affects when they vote. What affects an increase of voters is the ease of voting on Election Day.”

Her message was quickly challenged by John Zody, chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party, who issued a statement asserting that early voting is related to turnout. He was not at the meeting.

Zody noted that during the 2016 election, Hamilton County had more early voting options than Marion County. Hamilton County’s turnout was 15 points higher, he said, and was directly affected by the early voting options.

“If there’s no correlation, as Secretary Lawson suggests, why are places like Hamilton County expanding locations? Convenience,” Zody said. “Every Hoosier voter deserves that option, not just those residing in Republican areas.”

However, a representative from the National Conference of State Legislators, Wendy Underhill, defended Lawson’s statement.

“What we see is that people who would have voted on Election Day spread their votes out during the election season primarily,” Underhill said.
Click to expand...
 
O

Ogodei

Member
balladofwindfishes said:
Can Mexico just say "no, we're not allowing these people to enter our country, they are not Mexican citizens" and strip them of their citizenship?

Because Mexico sure as hell doesn't want to deal with almost a million people who don't speak the language of the country and know nothing about the country
Click to expand...

Countries can and do refuse to take their citizens back all the time. It is against international law, though. The State Department periodically recommends sanctions against countries who refuse to repatriate deportees.

You're not allowed to render a person stateless, basically, which is what denying deportees is tantamount to.
 
C

chadskin

Member
We got one more Mueller ...

Special counsel Bob Mueller has teamed up with the IRS. According to sources familiar with his investigation into alleged Russian election interference, his probe has enlisted the help of agents from the IRS’ Criminal Investigations unit.

This unit—known as CI—is one of the federal government’s most tight-knit, specialized, and secretive investigative entities. Its 2,500 agents focus exclusively on financial crime, including tax evasion and money laundering. A former colleague of Mueller’s said he always liked working with IRS’ special agents, especially when he was a U.S. Attorney.

And it goes without saying that the IRS has access to Trump’s tax returns—documents that the president has long resisted releasing to the public.
Click to expand...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-mueller-enlists-the-irs-for-his-trump-russia-investigation
 
A

ArkhamFantasy

Member
chadskin said:
Special Council is teaming up with the IRS
Click to expand...

Trumps legal team

LBzdzZl.gif
 
R

Random Human

They were trying to grab your prize. They work for the mercenary. The masked man.
Special counsel Bob Mueller has teamed up with the IRS. According to sources familiar with his investigation into alleged Russian election interference, his probe has enlisted the help of agents from the IRS' Criminal Investigations unit.

This unit—known as CI—is one of the federal government's most tight-knit, specialized, and secretive investigative entities.
Click to expand...

Mmmmmmm.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Okay guys, so I wanted to get that book club started ASAP.

How should we go about this?
 
E

Ecotic

Member
I've been tuning out any new developments on the Mueller investigation for a while now. I'll wait for the announcement of the findings when and if it happens. Hanging onto every new minutia in hopes of reading the tea leaves feels both fruitless and getting one's hopes up. If it comes down to it, I dread the day where the investigation is ended with an anti-climactic press release saying "No findings" and Trump and Fox News crow about it for ages.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
PBY said:
Would read anything.

Make an OT, link it here, pick a book and a deadline ?


The HST Nixon book was great fyi
Click to expand...

Well, I'd like to see what everyone else would prefer to read.

Unless y'all want me to act like a dictator and choose one myself. :O
 
E

Ernest

Banned
chadskin said:
New, long WashPost palace intrigue story out ... I think the main takeaways are a) that, as described (and as many expected), Trump and Kelly are on an "inevitable collision course" and b) Tillerson's departure was described by people close to Trump as "imminent".

On Kelly:




On Tillerson:


More here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...b32d72-8d97-11e7-91d5-ab4e4bb76a3a_story.html
Click to expand...
Who's gonna be dumb enough to take their place? Or does everyone realize that this is now a sinking ship?
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
VendettaRed07 said:
You pick the first one because it was your idea

whoever completes the book you pick first gets to choose the next one.
Click to expand...

Oh I see. (Never done one of these before)

I should probably pick one that everyone can have access to eh?
 
B

BlastProcessing

Member
Amibguous Cad

Amibguous Cad

Member
Oblivion said:
Okay guys, so I wanted to get that book club started ASAP.

How should we go about this?
Click to expand...

I'd say you'd be best off creating a Discord server, that'd be an easy place to have the meetings and be a good place to put the readings and schedule up.

You probably want to be dictatorial at first. What I did when I started my own online book club was choose the first two or three readings myself, then after I had some regulars give a poll with 3 options chosen by me but following the recommendations of the channel.

IGenerally, don't be afraid to act like a dictator. For a group like this to succeed, what it most needs is clarity of what books they'll be reading, where to meet, when to meet, etc. Having it clearly decided and decided early is more important than waiting for a consensus that might not ever emerge.

That said, if you're looking for suggestions...

51GZhmHUhfL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 
M

Mark Andrew

Member
FOX just wrapped a roundtable accusing Hillary of selling access through her book tour, for when she runs again in 2020. Getting to the real issues.
 
J

Joe

Member
Politico | GOP senators: Comey drafted statement clearing Clinton before her interview
Grassley, Graham say evidence suggests decision not to file charges was 'prejudged'.

Former FBI Director James Comey began drafting a statement rejecting the idea of criminal charges against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over her private email account about two months or more before Clinton was interviewed in the FBI probe, according to partial transcripts of interviews released Thursday by two Republican senators.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Sen. Lindsey Graham said they obtained the transcripts from the Office of Special Counsel, a government watchdog agency that launched an investigation into whether Comey's actions violated a federal law against government employees engaging in political activity while on duty.
Click to expand...

Any insights on this? Are Graham and Grassley trying to slander Comey? Or may there actually be some truth to what they say?
 
K

kirblar

Member
Mark Andrew said:
FOX just wrapped a roundtable accusing Hillary of selling access through her book tour, for when she runs again in 2020. Getting to the real issues.
Click to expand...
How much $ should we bet on this showing up as a talking point in "leftist" circles within 24 hours?
 
B

balladofwindfishes

Member
Joe said:
Politico | GOP senators: Comey drafted statement clearing Clinton before her interview
Grassley, Graham say evidence suggests decision not to file charges was 'prejudged'.

Any insights on this? Are Graham and Grassley trying to slander Comey? Or may there actually be some truth to what they say?
Click to expand...

There was probably enough evidence to end the investigation before the interview, and they just did it as a formality.

Graham and Grassley are trying to discredit Comey because he'll be a key witness in potential obstruction charges. They want to make it seem like he was bias and incompetent and had good reason to be fired independent of Trump's investigation.
 
UberTag

UberTag

Member
BlastProcessing said:
Kelly is one SNL skit away from getting fired.
Click to expand...
What woman should be brought in to portray him?

What's Tiffani-Amber Thiessen doing these days?
Perhaps Baldwin Trump can yell for Kelly and she could come out as the General and we get a whole bunch of Saved By the Bell jokes?
 
P

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Mark Andrew said:
FOX just wrapped a roundtable accusing Hillary of selling access through her book tour, for when she runs again in 2020. Getting to the real issues.
Click to expand...

Good. Keep focusing on Hillary so the democratic candidate in 2020 will come in basically unscathed.
 
S

skullmuffins

Banned
balladofwindfishes said:
There was probably enough evidence to end the investigation before the interview, and they just did it as a formality.

Graham and Grassley are trying to discredit Comey because he'll be a key witness in potential obstruction charges. They want to make it seem like he was bias and incompetent and had good reason to be fired independent of Trump's investigation.
Click to expand...
Yup. And of course, beginning to draft a statement on the expected outcome doesn't mean he would have ignored evidence of criminal wrongdoing if it happened to come up, but Comey didn't need to interview Hillary to recognize that charging her with espionage or w/e Republicans were salivating over for using a private email server was a crazy pipe dream.

Coincidence this came out the day after Trump randomly calls up Grassley to tell him he still likes ethanol? lol.
 
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