Liberal Forum

Misty » 21 Jan 2018 1:44 pm » wrote:

Termin8tor » 21 Jan 2018 1:11 pm » wrote:

Misty » 20 Jan 2018 9:08 pm » wrote:Isn't it amazing that this put this ad together in less than 24 hours after the shutdown began?
I'm sure they didn't have it ready to go knowing that there would be a shutdown.[/sarcasm]

First you lie that Trump is incompetent.
Then you blame him for being well prepared.

So what you're saying is that he was prepared for the 'good shutdown' that he said we needed last September.
The same shutdown that his son Eric is now saying is good for them.
And you obviously defend that racist ad.
If you support and enable that kind of racism on the part of this president and your party, then you own it and have no right to whine if people call you a racist.

Termin8tor » 21 Jan 2018 1:11 pm » wrote:Why is DACA a part of the budget process, psycho?

Because BLOTUS rescinded it and gave Congress a 6 month deadline to deal with it, which he knew they never would.
The veil has been lifted on his phony concern for DACA recipients as he is now lumping them in with all undocumented immigrants, and making no differentiation between people who were brought here as children and those who came as adults.

And the veil has also been lifted on the phony narrative that his immigration policies are all about security.
They're all about race.

The veil has been lifted on his phony concern for DACA recipients as he is now lumping them in with all undocumented immigrants, and making no differentiation between people who were brought here as children and those who came as adults

Misty » 21 Jan 2018 5:00 pm » wrote:


I guess the jackass doesn't know that he couldn't even get 51 votes in his own party.



What he said.

Misty » 21 Jan 2018 1:44 pm » wrote:And you obviously defend that racist ad.
If you support and enable that kind of racism on the part of this president and your party, then you own it and have no right to whine if people call you a racist......

And the veil has also been lifted on the phony narrative that his immigration policies are all about security.
They're all about race.

Democrats Fear Debate about Dreamers Will Pivot to One on ‘Chain Migration’
The more Americans focus on immigration policy, the worse the Democrats will look.
By John Fund — January 22, 2018
No one knows when the government shutdown will be ended, but it’s increasingly likely that Democrats will rue the day they launched it. “I’m concerned that we don’t have an exit strategy,” one Democratic aide for a liberal senator told NBC News on Sunday. He went on to say: “This is a question of who’s going to flinch first.”


One reason Democrats are nervous is that the longer the shutdown goes on, the longer voters will start to realize the Democrats are fighting not so much for the Dreamers — people brought to this country as children by adults who entered illegally — but for the concepts of “chain migration” and the “diversity lottery,” which have done so much to warp our immigration policy and make it a shambles.....
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4 ... -harm-them

Trust in US government, media, implodes as China's soars.

Trust in US institutions, including the government and media, is imploding, according to the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer published ahead of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

"No country saw steeper declines than the United States, with a 37-point aggregate drop in trust across all institutions.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, China experienced a 27-point gain, more than any other country," the study reads.

Despite low unemployment and a booming stock market, the US saw trust in major institutions decline heavily over the course of 2017, and now just one in three in the US trust the government, according to the study.

However, Americans displayed a higher degree of trust in businesses.

China, which came in first with 74% of the general population trusting the country's institutions, had its highest level of trust in the government with relatively low trust in business, presenting the inverse of the US's standing.

But the real loser in 2018 is the media, which is distrusted in 22 of 28 countries, and it could be tied to the US's leadership.

"The United States is enduring an unprecedented crisis of trust,” Richard Edelman, the CEO company that produced the study, said in a press release.

"This is the first time that a massive drop in trust has not been linked to a pressing economic issue or catastrophe like the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

In fact, it’s the ultimate irony that it’s happening at a time of prosperity, with the stock market and employment rates in the U.S. at record highs.

The root cause of this fall is the lack of objective facts and rational discourse."

While the US economy has done well, the "lack of objective facts and rational discourse" described by Edelman may relate to President Donald Trump's attacks on the media and frequently counter-factual assertions.

The study contacted 1,150 adults in each country.

For a complete summary of the study's findings, click here.

Misty » 22 Jan 2018 11:03 am » wrote:[Trust in US government, media, implodes.....

A lack of objective facts and rational discourse.
That describes this forum.

Misty » 22 Jan 2018 11:03 am » wrote:

While the US economy has done well, the "lack of objective facts and rational discourse" described by Edelman may relate to President Donald Trump's attacks on the media and frequently counter-factual assertions.

His counter-factual assertions?
A nice way of saying his lies.

Misty » 22 Jan 2018 11:03 am » wrote:His counter-factual assertions?
A nice way of saying his lies.

Termin8tor » 19 Jan 2018 9:55 pm » wrote:

Misty » 19 Jan 2018 6:20 pm » wrote:So no one is allowed to see the underlying material that Nunes', memo is based on.
I wouldn't believe Nunes if he said that water was wet.
He has been a shill for 45 from day one.
#complicit

Every Republican who's seen the memo and commented on it from what I've seen supports Nunes's version of it.

That it reveals a massive abuse of power. Rep. Duffy warned other Repubs on Fox tonight not to exaggerate the evidence.

But like others, he expects indictments to come, apparently of FBI or Justice Dept. officials.

Are you accusing every one of the Republicans of lying?

Is this some Vast Right Wing Conspiracy of Lies?

Good luck finding your way out of this predicament.

Misty » 19 Jan 2018 5:45 pm » wrote: I don't trust anything that Nunes has anything to do with.

“Americans Will Be Surprised How Bad It Is”: GOP Rep. Admits “Deeply Disturbing” FISA Memo Shook Him To The Core

According to the Washington Examiner‘s Byron York, Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) huddled together Saturday to discuss a “never-before-used procedure” for releasing the “shocking” FISA abuse memo. As Republicans plot the best pathway forward for releasing the memo, more lawmakers are coming forward to reveal how shocking its contents are.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/01 ... emo-video/

Trump inauguration was crawling with Russians, and the FBI was watching.

The FBI monitored a number of highly influential Russians who attended events at President Trump’s inauguration last year, including a Kremlin-linked lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign associates during the 2016 election campaign, according to a report.

Counterintelligence officials with the FBI became concerned because some of the same Russians had surfaced in the agency’s investigation into Moscow meddling in the election and possible collusion by the Trump campaign, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

One was Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr., former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, now a top White House adviser, at Trump Tower in June 2016, the newspaper reported.

Veselnitskaya appeared at a black-tie inaugural party hosted by the campaign committee of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California.

Another of the half-dozen high-profile Russians was Alexey Repik, a wealthy pharmaceutical executive, who with his wife, Polina Repik, watched Trump’s swearing-in at the US Capitol, the Washington Post said.

He even boasted on Facebook that he got close enough to the president at a pre-inaugural event to “check the handshake strength of Donald Trump.”

Repik also posted photos of his inauguration credentials next to a “Make America Great Again” hat, writing that “I believe President Donald Trump will open a new page in American history.”

The Russians were among VIPs from around the world who converged on the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC.

“It was a great, amazing experience,” Alexey Repik told the newspaper, adding that he was also in the nation’s capital during President Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration but did not attend any events.

Some of the Russian attendees told the newspaper they got tickets though US political contacts.

Organizers said they kept records of contributors but found it impossible to keep track of all the tickets that went to donors.

They also said they followed all Secret Service protocols.

“The Presidential Inaugural Committee for President Trump, administratively speaking, was conducted in similar, if not identical fashion to previous inaugurations,” the committee told the newspaper.

The Secret Service also said it followed all the usual procedures.

A number of congressional panels, plus special counsel Robert Mueller, are investigating Russian involvement in the election.

Trump has dismissed the allegations as a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats upset over his defeat of Hillary Clinton.​

Misty » 22 Jan 2018 5:02 pm » wrote:Russians, Russians, Russians, blah, blah, blah.

WTF is up with all these Russians?

Unsealed FISA Court Ruling Shows 85% of Obama’s FBI and DOJ 704-5 FISA Searches Were Illegal and Illegally Provided to Government Outsiders
January 22, 2018 by Jim Hoft
A Report was released in April of 2017 that received no publicity until recently.
The report was a ruling on the results of an investigation or audit into FISA searches made by Obama’s FBI and DOJ during Obama’s time in office.

The report shows Obama’s FBI and DOJ participated in widespread criminal searches and criminal sharing of data with non authorized entities outside of government.

On April 26, 2017, an unsealed FISA Court Ruling unveiled a number of criminal activities that Barack Obama’s FBI and DOJ participated in during his time in office. The report to date received little attention. Now interest is brewing due to the recent actions of Congress and the report that is expected to be released in the upcoming weeks.

The FISA Court Ruling shows widespread abuse of the FISA mandate. According to the report, Obama’s FBI and DOJ performed searches on Americans that were against their 4th Amendment rights. This went on for years. One paragraph in the report states that 85% of the Section 704 and 705(b) FISA searches made during this time were non-compliant with applicable laws and therefore criminal.

FISA 705 warrants deal with US citizens outside of the country.
.

In addition, the report cites that at the same time that Obama’s DOJ and FBI were illegally searching Americans against their rights and unbeknownst to them, Obama’s FBI was providing this information to outside contractors who had no business or legal cause or claim the information.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/01 ... outsiders/

Misty » 22 Jan 2018 5:02 pm » wrote: WTF is up with all these Russians?

Misty » 22 Jan 2018 5:02 pm » wrote: WTF is up with all these Russians?

Mike Pence Runs Cover on Trump’s “****” and Porn Star Controversies: “I Know What’s In His Heart”

While on a diplomatic trip to Jerusalem, Vice President Mike Pence was more than happy to cement his position as a real bootlicker’s bootlicker.

He made that clear during an Associated Press interview in whch he defended President Trump’s “**** countries” comments in regard to immigration and dismissed claims of a 2006 affair between the then-Apprentice and adult actress Stormy Daniels as “baseless.”

“I know the president’s heart and I know that what President Trump wants to do is reform immigration to make our system one that puts the interests of America first,” Pence said, in response to claims that the president is racist for favoring immigrants from a majority white country like Norway over immigrants from “****” countries like Haiti and African nations.

Pence then said that immigrants should be considered “regardless of what country they come from or what their race and creed is.”

The notion that Trump’s senior aides have some profound handle on what’s “in his heart” versus what constantly comes out of his mouth or gets written on his Twitter feed isn’t a new one.

It’s a talking point former campaign manager and now senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway leaned on while defending him on the lead up to the inauguration in an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo about the notorious incident where Trump mocked New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski’s disability.

“You have to listen to what the president-elect has said about that. Why don’t you believe him?

Why is everything taken at face value?” Conway said, amid claims that Trump wasn’t actually making fun of Kovaleski’s congenital joint disorder when he did a crude impression of the reporter on the campaign trail.

“You can’t give him the benefit of the doubt on this and he’s telling you what was in his heart?

You always want to go by what’s come out of his mouth rather than look at what’s in his heart.”

This belies the commonly held belief that what comes out of the president’s mouth is an indication of what’s in his heart.

Like Conway, Pence is pushing the idea that Trump deserves the benefit of the doubt when he’s blown multiple opportunities to earn it.

Pence also demonstrated his shameless fealty to Trump by arguing reports an alleged affair between Trump and Daniels — which the Wall Street Journal claims left a paper trail regarding a $130,000 payout to buy the Good Will Humping star’s silence before the 2016 election — are “baseless.”

Either Pence is that committed to debasing himself for his boss, or he has no idea what “baseless” means as Daniels discussed the affair in great detail in a 2011 In Touch Weekly interview that had been shelved until last week.

But then, what else would you expect from a guy who ratted out his frat brothers when campus officials busted their party for having a keg?

Scoop: FBI director threatened to resign amid Trump, Sessions pressure.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions — at the public urging of President Donald Trump — has been pressuring FBI Director Christopher Wray to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, but Wray threatened to resign if McCabe was removed, according to three sources with direct knowledge.

Wray's resignation under those circumstances would have created a media firestorm.

The White House — understandably gun-shy after the Comey debacle — didn’t want that scene, so McCabe remains.

Sessions told White House Counsel Don McGahn about how upset Wray was about the pressure on him to fire McCabe, and McGahn told Sessions this issue wasn’t worth losing the FBI Director over, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Why it matters: Trump started his presidency by pressuring one FBI Director (before canning him), and then began pressuring another (this time wanting his deputy canned). This much meddling with the FBI for this long is not normal.

McGahn has been informed about these ongoing conversations, though he has not spoken with Wray about FBI personnel, according to an administration source briefed on the situation.

Trump nominated Wray, previously an assistant attorney general under George W. Bush, last June to replace James Comey as director.

Trump has also tweeted negatively about other senior FBI officials who are allies of Comey, including the former top FBI lawyer James A. Baker who was recently “reassigned” after pressure from Sessions.

White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah said of Wray: “As we’ve said, the president has enormous respect for the thousands of rank and file FBI agents who make up the world’s most professional and talented law enforcement agency.

He believes politically-motivated senior leaders including former Director Comey and others he empowered have tainted the agency’s reputation for unbiased pursuit of justice.

The president appointed Chris Wray because he is a man of true character and integrity and the right choice to clean up the misconduct at the highest levels of the FBI and give the rank and file confidence in their leadership.”

As I reported last night, Sessions has adamantly urged Wray to make a "fresh start" with his core team.

Trump and other Republicans have been hammering McCabe — who was selected by the White House as acting director after the Comey firing — for months on Twitter.

On July 26, Trump tweeted: "Why didn't A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation but got...big dollars ($700,000) for his wife's political run from Hillary Clinton and her representatives. Drain the Swamp!"

The latest: The New York Times — and others — reported in December that McCabe "is expected to retire after he becomes eligible for his pension [in] early [2018]."

But senior Justice officials are still not sure what McCabe plans to do.

The FBI declined to comment for this story.

Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores also declined to comment.

Pennsylvania court orders new congressional map due to gerrymandering.

Pennsylvania’s top court on Monday threw out the state’s congressional map, ruling that Republican legislators unlawfully sought partisan advantage, and gave them three weeks to rework it in a decision that could boost Democratic chances of retaking the U.S. House of Representatives.

In a 5-2 decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the electoral map violated the state’s Constitution by manipulating the district boundaries to marginalize Democratic voters, a practice called partisan gerrymandering.

Democrats, who hold only five of the state’s 18 congressional districts despite Pennsylvania’s status as an electoral swing state, hope to regain control of the House in the November mid-term elections by flipping 24 seats now held by Republicans nationwide.

A new map could give Democratic candidates a chance to capture as many as half a dozen Republican seats in Pennsylvania alone, with national polls showing voters strongly favoring Democrats in 2018.

The court’s five Democratic members said the congressional map “clearly, plainly and palpably violates the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” Both Republican justices dissented.

The court’s two-page order said the legislature has until Feb. 9 to submit a new map to Democratic Governor Tom Wolf, who would have until Feb. 15 to sign off. If those deadlines pass without an agreement, the court said it would adopt its own boundaries.

Experts have held up Pennsylvania as one of the most extreme examples of gerrymandering, pointing to bizarrely shaped districts that have earned nicknames like “Goofy kicking Donald Duck.” The Republican-controlled legislature created the current map in 2011, after the 2010 U.S. census.

The gerrymandered lines have been worth two or three additional seats to Pennsylvania Republicans, according to Michael Li, a redistricting expert at New York University.

‘BYPASS THE CONSTITUTION’

The state Senate president, Joe Scarnati, and majority leader, Jake Corman, both Republicans, called the court’s deadline “impossible” and said they would request a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It is clear that with this ruling the court is attempting to bypass the Constitution and the legislative process and legislate themselves, directly from the bench,” the two lawmakers said in a statement.

But the legal challenge, filed by the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, relied on the state Constitution, not the U.S. Constitution, and lawyers for the plaintiffs said the U.S. Supreme Court has no jurisdiction over the case.

“It’s well established that the United States Supreme Court does not review decisions of state force that exclusively construe state law,” attorney Stanton Jones said.

The U.S. Supreme Court is already weighing whether to set a legal standard for partisan gerrymandering in two cases out of Wisconsin and Maryland. The court is expected to rule by the end of June in both cases.

Monday’s decision could encourage similar state-court challenges elsewhere, said Li, the redistricting expert.

“It shows there may be a second front in the war against gerrymandering that does not depend on what the U.S. Supreme Court does or does not do in the Wisconsin and Maryland cases,” Li said.

A panel of federal judges in North Carolina two weeks ago threw out that state’s Republican-drawn map as illegally gerrymandered and ordered new lines drawn, a potential boost to Democrats in U.S. House races in that state. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, blocked that ruling last week, meaning a new electoral map in North Carolina is unlikely this year.

The plaintiffs had argued the map violates the Pennsylvania Constitution’s guarantees of free expression and equal protection. The court’s order did not specify how the map runs afoul of the law but said a full opinion will be released in the future.

One Democratic justice, Max Baer, agreed with the court majority that the map is illegal but said he would have delayed a new map until the 2020 election cycle to avoid “chaos.”

The March special election for a vacant U.S. House seat in western Pennsylvania is not affected, the court said.

Misty » 22 Jan 2018 5:02 pm » wrote:

Trump inauguration was crawling with Russians, and the FBI was watching.

The FBI monitored a number of highly influential Russians who attended events at President Trump’s inauguration last year, including a Kremlin-linked lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign associates during the 2016 election campaign, according to a report.

Counterintelligence officials with the FBI became concerned because some of the same Russians had surfaced in the agency’s investigation into Moscow meddling in the election and possible collusion by the Trump campaign, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

One was Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr., former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, now a top White House adviser, at Trump Tower in June 2016, the newspaper reported.

Veselnitskaya appeared at a black-tie inaugural party hosted by the campaign committee of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California.

Another of the half-dozen high-profile Russians was Alexey Repik, a wealthy pharmaceutical executive, who with his wife, Polina Repik, watched Trump’s swearing-in at the US Capitol, the Washington Post said.

He even boasted on Facebook that he got close enough to the president at a pre-inaugural event to “check the handshake strength of Donald Trump.”

Repik also posted photos of his inauguration credentials next to a “Make America Great Again” hat, writing that “I believe President Donald Trump will open a new page in American history.”

The Russians were among VIPs from around the world who converged on the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC.

“It was a great, amazing experience,” Alexey Repik told the newspaper, adding that he was also in the nation’s capital during President Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration but did not attend any events.

Some of the Russian attendees told the newspaper they got tickets though US political contacts.

Organizers said they kept records of contributors but found it impossible to keep track of all the tickets that went to donors.

They also said they followed all Secret Service protocols.

“The Presidential Inaugural Committee for President Trump, administratively speaking, was conducted in similar, if not identical fashion to previous inaugurations,” the committee told the newspaper.

The Secret Service also said it followed all the usual procedures.

A number of congressional panels, plus special counsel Robert Mueller, are investigating Russian involvement in the election.

Trump has dismissed the allegations as a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats upset over his defeat of Hillary Clinton.​

WTF is up with all these Russians?

Misty » 22 Jan 2018 8:20 pm » wrote:Scoop: FBI director threatened to resign amid Trump, Sessions pressure.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions — at the public urging of President Donald Trump — has been pressuring FBI Director Christopher Wray to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, but Wray threatened to resign if McCabe was removed, according to three sources with direct knowledge.

Good for Chris Wray.