Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[SimonNZ]

The environment for reporters covering the EPA just got a lot more toxic.

"Amid the many news releases issued each week by the Environmental Protection Agency, a few stand out. Such as these:

• "Politico Misleads On Trump EPA's Progress Cleaning Up Superfund Sites."
• "The Hill [newspaper] Gets It Wrong On New EPA FOIA Regulation."
• "National Correspondent Misleads on Wheeler's Remarks."

While the Trump administration is not known for velvety smooth relations with the news media, federal agencies are far more likely to ignore reporters than to officially scold them. Not the EPA. Reporters whom the agency deems to have misreported can expect to hear about it, and not just through a polite phone call or an email requesting a correction.

Instead, the EPA goes public.

"A reader of Politico would have been rightfully confused about the results" of an inspector general's report about a Superfund task force, the EPA declared in a June 24 release. "It is only fair to ask why they chose to ignore the key findings of this report."

A day later, the EPA's communications wing weighed in on the Hill's story about a new regulation. "The Hill used a false premise and ran a grossly inaccurate story," it said. It went on to list "THE HILL's FALSE QUOTES," "MORE OF THE HILL'S FALSE QUOTES" and "MORE FALSE REPORTING FROM THE HILL."

A spokeswoman for the Hill, Lisa Dallos, said the publication stands by its story. Politico's spokesman, Brad Dayspring, characterized the Superfund story as "fair and fact based."

The EPA's unusual approach is in some ways a return to its recent past. Under former administrator Scott Pruitt, who resigned a year ago amid various scandals, the agency attacked reporters on a semiregular basis. The pushback sometimes took on a nasty tone. Pruitt's spokesman, Jahan Wilcox, who has also left the agency, once responded to a reporter who was seeking comment for a story by telling her, "You have a great day, you're a piece of trash."

Things simmered down with Pruitt's departure, but have lately begun to grow toxic again.
[...]

Most recently, the agency trained its fire on the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ), in effect challenging en masse reporters who cover the EPA. Agency officials objected to a letter written by the group to Wheeler about the agency's new Freedom of Information Act regulations. In a news release, the agency criticized the letter, saying it included "numerous inaccuracies that were regurgitated from false articles."
"They took it as an opportunity to discredit or suggest environmental journalists were misleading the public," said Bobby Magill, SEJ's president. "It's part of a larger pattern of trying to smear the press."

Magill, a reporter for Bloomberg Environment, said he objected to "the tone" of the EPA's response. "It's one thing to set the record straight," he said. "It's a whole other thing to suggest you're intentionally misleading people."

But by rebutting in such a public way, the EPA risks calling more attention to the stories it's disputing, a potential example of the Streisand effect, in which an effort to rebut or suppress information has the unintended consequence of drawing more interest to it (the phenomenon was named for legendary singer and actor Barbra Streisand, whose attempts to keep an aerial photograph of her Malibu home out of public view led to a spike of interest in it). The disputed Politico story, for example, was available only through Politico's subscription service, so few would have known about it before the EPA complained.

[drogulus]

$3,355,970,000,000: Federal Spending Sets Record Through June; Deficit Hits $747,115,000,000

"The federal government spent a record $3,355,970,000,000 in the first nine months of fiscal 2019 (October through June), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.

Prior to this fiscal year, the most the federal government had ever spent in the October-through-June period was in fiscal 2018, when the Treasury doled out $3,199,795,700,000 in constant June 2019 dollars. Before last year, the most the federal government had ever spent in the first nine months of the fiscal year was in fiscal 2009, when it spent $3,176,577,910,000.

Fiscal 2009 was the year that President George W. Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program legislation to bailout failing banks and President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, his economic stimulus plan.

Total federal tax revenues in the first nine months of fiscal 2019 hit $2,608,855,000,000. That was more than the $2,582,688,760,000 in total tax revenue (in constant June 2019 dollars) that the Treasury collected in the first nine months of fiscal 2018, but less than the record $2,626,410,840,000 (in constant June 2019 dollars) that the Treasury collected in total tax revenues in the first nine months of fiscal 2015.

The difference between the $2,608,855,000,000 in total taxes collected in the first nine months of this fiscal year and the record spending of $3,355,970,000,000 left the government with a deficit of $747,115,000,000."

     Trump bought a big tax cut with all that deficit spending. It went to big savers, not big spenders, so it didn't do much. It's not a stimulus plan, it's more of a de-stimulus plan, higher debt/GDP, not higher GDP/debt. That's how supply side cuts "work".

     Taxes extinguish dollars the government has spent. That drives the value of the dollar. The tax balance was shifted down onto GDP and away from big savings. In a money economy demand feeds supply. Dollars fed in through government spending trickle up from who initially get them to businesses and their owners. If you short circuit the process by lowering taxes at the top the tax balance will reduce demand from where it would otherwise be. Economists know this and explain why wider deficits on the spend side function better than ones on the tax side. You could do a demand side cut with sufficient punch (like the earned income tax credit). Politically it's hard, since cutting taxes for most people fills Repubs with horror.

[SimonNZ]

Trump under fire for racially-charged tweets against congresswomen

"US President Donald Trump has been accused of racism after posting tweets attacking Democratic congresswomen.

He claimed the women "originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe", before suggesting they "go back".

He then said Speaker "Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements".

It comes a week after Ms Pelosi clashed with "the squad", a group of four left-wing Democrat women of colour.

Of the four congresswomen, three - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley - were born and raised in the US, while the fourth, Ilhan Omar, moved to the US as a child.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx in New York, approximately 12 miles away from the Queens hospital where Mr Trump himself was born."

[drogulus]

     Former U.K. Ambassador Leak: Trump Scrapped Iran Nuclear Deal to 'Spite Obama'

     I can't imagine the UK government hadn't figured that out.

[SimonNZ]

'You can leave': Trump unrepentant over racist attack on congresswomen

[...]
"At the White House, Trump was asked if he thought his tweets were racist. "Not at all," he said, adding: "If somebody has a problem with our country, if someone doesn't want to be in our country, they should leave."

Asked if it concerned him that many thought his tweets racist, he said: "It doesn't concern me because many people agree with me."


I'm also glad to see that absolutely nobody is buying Paul Ryan's sudden and all too late growing of a spine re:Trump

[SimonNZ]

Kellyanne Conway Rants to Fox News: AOC and 'The Squad' Represent 'Dark Underbelly' of America

"Defending President Trump's repeated racist attacks against a group of Democratic congresswomen of color, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway claimed on Tuesday that the so-called "Squad" represents a "dark underbelly in this country" and that some of the lawmakers are "palling around with terrorists."

Moments after Republican House leaders held a news conference in which they supported the president and announced they wouldn't back a Democratic motion to censure Trump for his racist tweets, Conway appeared on Fox News' America's Newsroom to discuss the latest developments in this multi-day saga."


Kellyanne Conway Defies Congressional Subpoena, Skips House Hearing

"White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway defied a congressional subpoena on Monday by not showing up to a House Oversight Committee hearing on her potential violations of the Hatch Act. Prior to the start of the hearing, White House counsel Pat Cipollone told the committee in a letter that Conway "cannot be compelled to testify before Congress with respect to matters related to her service as a senior adviser to the President." He also added that Trump directed Conway "not to appear at the Committee's scheduled hearing[.]" Last month, the Office of Special Counsel recommended Conway "be removed from federal service" due to her "numerous" violations of the Hatch Act, which bars some federal employees from taking an active role in political campaigns. The office claimed Conway violated the 1939 act by "disparaging Democratic presidential candidates[.]"

[SimonNZ]

Ex-ICE chief said he thought of giving Ill. Rep. 'Chuy' Garcia 'a beating' after clashing at House hearing

"The former head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said on Fox News on Monday he thought about "beating" Illinois Rep. Jesus "Chuy" Garcia when the two got into a heated exchange at a hearing on Capitol Hill.
Tom Homan, who previously served as acting ICE director under President Donald Trump, said he "broke" when Garcia "called me a racist" and "told me I didn't care about dying children" during a House Oversight Committee hearing Friday about immigration issues and the situation at the southern border.

"That's when I broke," said Homan, a Fox News contributor. "If you noticed, I hesitated a minute before I started yelling because I was actually thinking about getting up and throwing that man a beating right there in the middle of the room. ... I had enough."


Texas Republican Judge leaves the Party
click to enlarge:



A Border Patrol Agent Reveals What It's Really Like to Guard Migrant Children

"The Border Patrol agent, a veteran with 13 years on the job, had been assigned to the agency's detention center in McAllen, Texas, for close to a month when the team of court-appointed lawyers and doctors showed up one day at the end of June.

Taking in the squalor, the stench of unwashed bodies, and the poor health and vacant eyes of the hundreds of children held there, the group members appeared stunned.

Then, their outrage rolled through the facility like a thunderstorm. One lawyer emerged from a conference room clutching her cellphone to her ear, her voice trembling with urgency and frustration. "There's a crisis down here," the agent recalled her shouting.

At that moment, the agent, a father of a 2-year-old, realized that something in him had shifted during his weeks in the McAllen center. "I don't know why she's shouting," he remembered thinking. "No one on the other end of the line cares. If they did, this wouldn't be happening."

As he turned away to return to his duties, the agent recalled feeling sorry for the lawyer. "I wanted to tell her the rest of us have given up."
[...]

His comments come at a particularly fraught moment, as politicians on the left compare the Border Patrol's detention facilities to "concentration camps" and senior Trump administration officials, including most recently Vice President Mike Pence, dismiss descriptions of the inhumane conditions as "unsubstantiated."

When asked about Pence's comments, the agent said the damning descriptions of the facilities are "more substantiated than not." And, while he didn't embrace the term concentration camp, he didn't dispute it either. He searched out loud for a term that might be more accurate. Gulag felt too strong. Jail didn't feel strong enough.

He came around to this: "It's kind of like torture in the army. It starts out with just sleep deprivation, then the next guys come in and sleep deprivation is normal, so they ramp it up. Then the next guys ramp it up some more, and then the next guys, until you have full blown torture going on. That becomes the new normal."

Referring back to the grim conditions inside the Border Patrol holding centers, he said: "Somewhere down the line people just accepted what's going on as normal. That includes the people responsible for fixing the problems."

He spoke at length in several interviews, making clear that the views and motivations he articulated were his alone. He said he's not on Facebook, much less a member of any secret Border Patrol social media groups. He also said he did not witness any egregious behavior by his colleagues during his time in McAllen. But he said the agents who were permanently posted there had the shortest fuses, and he'd heard them launch into condescending harangues at the young migrants, blaming them for crossing the border illegally and denying their requests for extra food, water or information about when they'd be released.

Most of his colleagues, he said, fall into one of two camps. There are the "law-and-order types" who see the immigrants in their custody, as, first and foremost, criminals. Then, he said, there are those who are "just tired of all the chaos" of a broken immigration system and "see no end in sight."

"The only possible end to this that I see is if there's some change after the next election," he said, referring to what might finally end the stalemate in Washington over how to reform the system. "Either this president will win again, and Congress will be forced to work with him. Or a new president will get elected and do things a different way."

[JBS]

Kellyanne Conway Rants to Fox News: AOC and 'The Squad' Represent 'Dark Underbelly' of America

"Defending President Trump's repeated racist attacks against a group of Democratic congresswomen of color, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway claimed on Tuesday that the so-called "Squad" represents a "dark underbelly in this country" and that some of the lawmakers are "palling around with terrorists."

Moments after Republican House leaders held a news conference in which they supported the president and announced they wouldn't back a Democratic motion to censure Trump for his racist tweets, Conway appeared on Fox News' America's Newsroom to discuss the latest developments in this multi-day saga."


Kellyanne Conway Defies Congressional Subpoena, Skips House Hearing

"White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway defied a congressional subpoena on Monday by not showing up to a House Oversight Committee hearing on her potential violations of the Hatch Act. Prior to the start of the hearing, White House counsel Pat Cipollone told the committee in a letter that Conway "cannot be compelled to testify before Congress with respect to matters related to her service as a senior adviser to the President." He also added that Trump directed Conway "not to appear at the Committee's scheduled hearing[.]" Last month, the Office of Special Counsel recommended Conway "be removed from federal service" due to her "numerous" violations of the Hatch Act, which bars some federal employees from taking an active role in political campaigns. The office claimed Conway violated the 1939 act by "disparaging Democratic presidential candidates[.]"

Dark underbelly is an interesting choice of words in this context....

[Karl Henning]

Dark underbelly is an interesting choice of words in this context....

No coincidence....

[SimonNZ]

Rep. Al Green says he will file articles of impeachment against Trump tonight, despite pushback from Democratic leaders

"The Texas Democrat told The Washington Post that he has notified Democratic leaders of his move to file the articles Tuesday night. Under House rules, Democratic leaders can decide to try to table the impeachment articles, effectively killing them for now; refer them to the House Judiciary Committee for consideration; or allow the vote to proceed as is.

More than 80 members of the House have called for launching an impeachment inquiry, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has resisted.

This is a developing story. It will be updated.


Six officials at Southwest Key, nonprofit running migrant child shelters, earned more than $1 million in 2017

"Six high-ranking employees at a nonprofit organization housing thousands of migrant children for the federal government made at least $1 million for their work in 2017, according to tax filings released Tuesday.

The tax records show that Juan Sanchez, founder of Southwest Key Programs, the Texas-based nonprofit, earned $3.6 million in total compensation that year, which The Washington Post reported last week. They also showed that other prominent employees — including the group's chief financial officer, who earned more than $2.4 million — were earning substantial, seven-figure salaries at the nonprofit.

Sanchez left Southwest Key earlier this year amid anger over his income and scrutiny of the nonprofit's facilities and processes. Three of the other officials who earned at least $1 million in 2017 also have left the group, according to an official at Southwest Key who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Southwest Key is a prominent contractor housing unaccompanied migrant children awaiting placement with relatives or other adults. It shelters about 4,500 children and teens in Texas, California and Arizona, caring for a little more than a third of the 12,500 minors held by the Department of Health and Human Services.

This work has proved to be very lucrative: The nonprofit has an annual contract of about $460 million to house children, and it has collected more than $1 billion since 2014, according to federal records. Other companies and nonprofits also have gotten contracts that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars apiece for housing children, though some executives have expressed a grim view of their work.

Kevin Dinnin, head of the San Antonio-based nonprofit BCFS Health and Human Services, told reporters at a new emergency shelter for unaccompanied migrant children: "I hate this mission. The only reason we do it is to keep the kids out of the Border Patrol jail cells."

Sanchez's compensation ballooned in recent years, nearly doubling from $786,222 in 2015 to $1.48 million a year later. Then it doubled again in 2017, according to the tax form released Tuesday and another filed by a Southwest Key subsidiary that manages charter schools in Texas."

[drogulus]

     Trump's racist comments can be used against him in court as judges cite them to block policies

     This just continues what's been happening since Trump took office.

In between the travel ban and the census came four rulings blocking Trump's attempt to eliminate Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the program that shields from deportation young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, each citing disparaging anti-immigrant remarks by the president.

In addition, three separate decisions citing Trump's "shithole countries" comments helped block a plan by the administration to end temporary protected status for migrants from countries affected by natural or man-made disasters.

     The thing is the courts must take into consideration the record of racial, ethnic and religious animus Trump has given the whole country repeatedly. What a remarkable thing it is that when Trump is undoubtedly telling the truth about the motivations behind his policies it makes it impossible to fully carry them out.

[Karl Henning]

     Trump's racist comments can be used against him in court as judges cite them to block policies

     This just continues what's been happening since Trump took office.

Yes, anyone for whom this is news, hasn't been paying attention.

[JBS]

US House realizes impeaching Trump for his comments is a futile effort
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/17/politics/trump-impeachment-house-vote/index.html

[SimonNZ]

Footage of Trump and Epstein partying with women in 1992 emerges

[amw]

Attempting to tie Epstein to Trump will just result in ~42% of the electorate adopting a stance in favour of pedophilia. I'm not sure if that's better or worse than the current situation.

[SimonNZ]

Attempting to tie Epstein to Trump will just result in ~42% of the electorate adopting a stance in favour of pedophilia. I'm not sure if that's better or worse than the current situation.

Good. Everyone, themselves included, should have no illusions about what their Traditional Christian Family Values looks like.

In case it wasn't already clear.

[Karl Henning]

US House realizes impeaching Trump for his comments is a futile effort
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/17/politics/trump-impeachment-house-vote/index.html

/quote]

Keep the powder dry.

[SimonNZ]

Trump rally crowd chants 'send her back' after president attacks Ilhan Omar

[drogulus]

     Trump Disavows 'Send Her Back' Chant as G.O.P. Frets Over Ugly Phrase

"I was not happy with it," Mr. Trump said on Thursday at the White House. "I disagree with it."

"I didn't say that," he added. "They did."

     

[SimonNZ]

     Trump Disavows 'Send Her Back' Chant as G.O.P. Frets Over Ugly Phrase

"I was not happy with it," Mr. Trump said on Thursday at the White House. "I disagree with it."

"I didn't say that," he added. "They did."

   

He did say it. And it would have been one of his people out there whipping up the chant.

...and requires a herd mentality to follow that lead.