Trump Dump: Internal Policy (Thread I)

[Ralin]

Indeed. I don't see how anybody can see this as a fold...

"Trump says it is and everyone who is already committed to him will believe it and ignore any evidence to the contrary."

[Civil War Man]

The democrats got one of the things they wanted and they can use the filibuster to get DACA next month. DACA isn't off the table, just delayed. So it looks like a small win to me.

If you honestly think that McConnell can be trusted to keep his word, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

As for it being any kind of win, it's estimated that about 122 people are going to lose their legal protections every single day there is no DACA bill, which comes out to over 2000 more people at risk of being deported due to this ~2 week delay.

And that's going to just keep getting worse, thanks to people like Stephen Miller and John Kelly basically enabling ICE to carry out a nationwide campaign of ethnic cleansing.

[The Romulan Republic]

Going to call Chuck Schumer's office tonight, and my Senator (Bennett of Colorado- a Centrist weakling if ever there was one) and express my displeasure, and my support for shutting down the government again if McConnel breaks his word, and keeping it shut this time until there's a clean DACA bill.

[Simon_Jester]

The democrats got one of the things they wanted and they can use the filibuster to get DACA next month. DACA isn't off the table, just delayed. So it looks like a small win to me.

If you honestly think that McConnell can be trusted to keep his word, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

As for it being any kind of win, it's estimated that about 122 people are going to lose their legal protections every single day there is no DACA bill, which comes out to over 2000 more people at risk of being deported due to this ~2 week delay.

And that's going to just keep getting worse, thanks to people like Stephen Miller and John Kelly basically enabling ICE to carry out a nationwide campaign of ethnic cleansing.

McConnell can't be trusted to keep his word, but McConnell failing to keep his word is a much more solid basis for a shutdown, and reduces the risk of said shutdown backfiring.

Also, CHIP funding being unstable is also likely to come with an associated body count, though I can't easily estimate it. How many unjust deportations does it take to offset one dead kid?

this is a nontrivial balancing exercise.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah. I could live with the deal now, even if I don't like it, if not for the fact that the response from the Democratic base and political commentators alike seems to be overwhelmingly leaning towards "the Democrats folded", and my concerns that that will depress progressive and Latino turnout in November.

But I'm glad we got CHIP.

But if McConnell breaks his word, that's the time to shut it all down and not given an inch until there's a clean DACA bill passed. And I plan to tell my Senators, and Schumer, exactly that.

[Simon_Jester]

Fair point.

[Civil War Man]

Also, CHIP funding being unstable is also likely to come with an associated body count, though I can't easily estimate it. How many unjust deportations does it take to offset one dead kid?

this is a nontrivial balancing exercise.

That is exactly the kind of thinking that is encouraging the political hostage taking that the Republicans are engaging in. Next time this comes up, I can guarantee you that they are going to start taking hostages again in order to force the Dems to capitulate on the Dreamers again. Probably try a repeat of the whole military pay thing they also tried this time.

This is the third or fourth time since September that the Democrats have allowed Dreamers to be thrown under the bus for the sake of keeping the lights on. As far as I'm concerned, we've reached the point where giving any more ground on this issue is aiding and abetting ethnic cleansing.

[The Romulan Republic]

Also, CHIP funding being unstable is also likely to come with an associated body count, though I can't easily estimate it. How many unjust deportations does it take to offset one dead kid?

this is a nontrivial balancing exercise.

That is exactly the kind of thinking that is encouraging the political hostage taking that the Republicans are engaging in. Next time this comes up, I can guarantee you that they are going to start taking hostages again in order to force the Dems to capitulate on the Dreamers again. Probably try a repeat of the whole military pay thing they also tried this time.

This is the third or fourth time since September that the Democrats have allowed Dreamers to be thrown under the bus for the sake of keeping the lights on. As far as I'm concerned, we've reached the point where giving any more ground on this issue is aiding and abetting ethnic cleansing.

This as well.

There is NO POINT trying to endlessly negotiate and compromise with people who refuse to deal in good faith. This is something too much of the Democratic leadership has yet to learn.

And giving in to threats only encourages more threats. Its the same damn principle as "We don't negotiate with terrorists."

[bilateralrope]

The democrats got one of the things they wanted and they can use the filibuster to get DACA next month. DACA isn't off the table, just delayed. So it looks like a small win to me.

If you honestly think that McConnell can be trusted to keep his word, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

So the Democrats should use the threat of filibuster to make him keep his promise. Their ability to negotiate DACA has, if anything, gotten stronger now that they don't need to also negotiate for CHIP.

As for it being any kind of win, it's estimated that about 122 people are going to lose their legal protections every single day there is no DACA bill, which comes out to over 2000 more people at risk of being deported due to this ~2 week delay.

That's no worse than it would have been if the Democrats had got nothing that they wanted.

And that's going to just keep getting worse, thanks to people like Stephen Miller and John Kelly basically enabling ICE to carry out a nationwide campaign of ethnic cleansing.

One of the podcasts I listened to claimed that the total number of deportations has gone down under Trump. But there are a lot more people afraid of being deported. Fear instead of effective enforcement of the law.

This is the third or fourth time since September that the Democrats have allowed Dreamers to be thrown under the bus for the sake of keeping the lights on. As far as I'm concerned, we've reached the point where giving any more ground on this issue is aiding and abetting ethnic cleansing.

As long as they can continue to get something each time without losing anything, I have no problem with them letting this continue. Slow progress is still progress.

At some point the Republicans will be left with a choice:
- A deal the Democrats won't take.
- Give the Democrats everything they want.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yes, that strategy could work, perhaps- but only if they're willing to keep shutting down the government if the Republicans try to break their word. We'll see if Schumer has the balls for that. In the meantime, people should contact their Senators and let them know that they support further shutdowns if the Republicans don't do their fucking job.

[The Romulan Republic]

Remember the days when creepy, extramarital sexual scandals were enough to impeach someone?

Good times.

[TheFeniX]

Remember the days when creepy, extramarital sexual scandals were enough to impeach someone?

I don't recall JFK every getting impeached for banging... oh, you mean Clinton who they got for perjury and I believe obstruction, and the whole thing reeked of pure political motivation. And this was even coming from my Baptist preacher Government teacher. And that guy HATED Clinton, but even he saw the hypocrisy of the GOP.

And, once again my info is old and might be sketchy, Newty-boy ate shit because Democrats still picked up seats in the mid-terms because... America loves it when men have sex with random women, I guess. I mean, Jones/Lewinski were no Monroe, but take what you can get I guess. And I'm also pretty sure it broke on party lines when it came down to a vote.

Though the country seems ripe for a guy like Trump. We haven't had a sex-scandel dust up in the White House through two 8-year term presidents, both (D) and (R). People must get getting antsy.

[Simon_Jester]

The hypothesis that every 20-30 years the country will automatically elect the randiest guy they can find would tend to explain a lot.

[Dragon Angel]

Dreamers are getting screwed by Senate Dems.

Budget talks progress, as Senate Dems drop Dreamer demand

But House Democrats may not support a spending deal that lacks relief for young undocumented immigrants.

“We’re viewing [immigration and spending] on separate terms because they are on separate paths,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said.

Senate Democrats are willing to drop their demand that relief for Dreamers be tied to any long-term budget agreement — a potential boost for spending talks, but one that could face opposition from their House counterparts.

The shift comes in response to the deal struck between Senate leaders Monday to reopen the government and begin debate on an immigration bill next month. Meanwhile, budget negotiators are expressing optimism that a two-year agreement to lift stiff caps on defense and domestic spending is increasingly within reach.

“We’re viewing [immigration and spending] on separate terms because they are on separate paths,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s “procedural concession means we’ve got a deadline and a process,” Durbin added. “That to me is a significant step forward. It’s not everything I wanted, that’s for sure, but it’s a step forward.”

But House Democrats have signaled they are not ready to go along with a long-term budget deal without a fix to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that President Donald Trump is ending.

“We are insisting that these things be in the same negotiation,” said a senior House Democratic aide. “To us, what’s important is are these talks linked or not linked? To us, they are linked.”

The division among Democrats is complicating negotiations, as lawmakers in both parties face intense pressure — and a two-week time crunch — to show progress on government funding, immigration and a raft of other issues that have resulted in the government operating on stopgap spending bills since September.

Both parties are eager for a long-term budget agreement, with GOP defense hawks furious about uncertainty for the Pentagon and liberal Democrats concerned about deep cuts to domestic programs. But any legislation to boost spending by upwards of $250 billion over two years would likely need broad bipartisan backing in both chambers, as House conservatives have already hinted they’ll balk.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), another member of Democratic leadership, said that although she would prefer a deal to protect young undocumented immigrants be part of budget negotiations, the agreement reached with McConnell could make that impossible. The Kentucky Republican has said the Senate would turn to an immigration bill only if the government is still funded, and few Democrats seem to want another shutdown.

“Feb. 8, we’re going to have another [stopgap bill]. But we have to have that budget agreement in order to move forward. … That’s the goal,” Murray said. “And then the deal is that if DACA is not part of that, then it will be the next thing considered.”

“Everyone’s first preference is to get it all done by the 8th,” a Senate Democratic aide said on Wednesday. “We haven’t speculated on what happens if it doesn’t all come together.”

If Democrats are indeed willing to deal on spending caps without a firm commitment on DACA, it would represent a significant shift in the budget talks, which have stalled for months over immigration.

“I think everybody has a pretty general idea about where it’s going to end up. But this has been again another casualty of the DACA issue, that they’ve refused to conclude those,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Wednesday when asked how close leaders are to a spending caps deal.

“There’s gonna have to be some agreement on the spending caps, I believe [by Feb. 8], because I am skeptical whether the House in particular will vote for another continuing resolution. That’s the dilemma created by our Democratic colleagues,” Cornyn added.

Without a solution for Dreamers, Democrats have largely refused to acknowledge that they are making progress on a spending deal. But sources familiar with the talks say the distance between Republicans and Democrats has been narrowing for weeks.

Negotiators have already agreed to a massive boost to the Pentagon’s budget. While the figures are still in flux, multiple sources say Congress would raise military spending by at least $70 billion above the caps for fiscal 2018 and $80 billion in fiscal 2019.

That huge increase, much more than the White House’s most recent budget request, would deliver assurance to the GOP’s long-suffering defense hawks who have grudgingly voted for four short-term funding bills this fiscal year alone.

What remains is how much to spend on domestic programs, including everything from homeland security to the Department of Education.

GOP leaders have pitched a deal that would boost domestic agencies’ budgets by $45 billion to $50 billion over the caps for the next two years, sources say. Democrats, however, are insisting on at least $60 billion.

Under current spending caps, military funding would be limited to $549 billion in fiscal 2018. Domestic funding would be capped at $516 billion.

As Democrats have insisted on “parity” between the defense and nondefense spending boosts, GOP negotiators are eyeing creative budgetary maneuvers to get there.

Republican leaders are proposing tens of billions of dollars in additional domestic spending that wouldn’t count toward the caps, sources say. That would likely include billions in emergency funding to address the nation’s opioid epidemic, which both parties have called a priority.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), an ally of House GOP leadership, said in a phone interview Wednesday that opioid funding would be included “for sure” — likely in a way that wouldn’t count toward the caps.

Negotiators are also floating potential changes in mandatory spending — another budgetary gimmick — to further dodge the strict caps on discretionary spending. That could mean that programs with bipartisan support, like VA Choice, the private-sector health care program for veterans, would be moved to the mandatory side of the budget for good.

“They’re so close on these numbers,” said Bill Hoagland, a former top Senate staffer now with the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Publicly, though, House and Senate spending talks have been stalled since Thanksgiving, when Senate and House Democrats declared they wouldn’t agree on spending until Dreamers were helped.

“In some way, the most important budget negotiations are the negotiations on DACA,” added Cole, a senior appropriator who writes the House’s health, education and labor spending bill.

“The phrase used to me [is], ‘We’re six inches away from a spending deal.’ It’s just simply the DACA issue and the immigration question.”

Seung Min Kim and Connor O'Brien contributed to this report.

Both sides are not the same ... but one side seems to just have little to no will to fight for its values. What is the difference at this point? I may as well expect queer rights to be on the table and Senate Dems having no will to fight for us either.

At least the House Dems say they are disagreeing? At least, that's what they say. Senate Dems made their promise and... Hahahahaha.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't think you can treat the Democrats as a homogenous block on this issue (or most issues). IIRC, sixteen Senate Democrats (including pretty much all the likely 2020 Presidential contenders, apparently) voted to continue the shutdown.

I'm reluctant to write off the negotiations before they're concluded, because doubtless we're only getting part of the story- a lot of bargaining going on behind closed doors.

That said, I am not fool enough to trust to the Democratic leadership's spine, either. I have called both my Congressman, Schumer's office, and Senator Bennett (D, Colorado), and left messages expressing this view. I encourage others to do the same- I will make my intent to back primary challenges against any legislator who enables what I view as ethnic cleansing-the deportation of the Dreamers. We need to make them more afraid of us than they are of the Teabaggers.

[FaxModem1]

Politico

Trump's $1 trillion plan inspires 'Hunger Games' angst
The president's long-awaited infrastructure package will expect cities and states to pick up much more of the costs for their projects.

By LAUREN GARDNER 01/28/2018 06:49 AM EST
Donald Trump is pictured. | AP Photo
President Donald Trump holds up a Channellock locking plier during a "Made in America," roundtable event in the White House on July 19. The Trump administration isn't expected to issue full details of its infrastructure plan for two to four weeks. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo

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President Donald Trump won the White House promising a $1 trillion, 10-year blueprint to rebuild America — an initiative he said would create millions of jobs while making the nation’s highways, bridges, railroad and airports “second to none.”

But the infrastructure plan he's poised to pitch in Tuesday’s State of the Union is already drawing comparisons to the The Hunger Games.”

Instead of the grand, New Deal-style public works program that Trump's eye-popping price tag implies, Democratic lawmakers and mayors fear the plan would set up a vicious, zero-sum scramble for a relatively meager amount of federal cash — while forcing cities and states to scrounge up more of their own money, bringing a surge of privately financed toll roads, and shredding regulations in the name of building projects faster.

The federal share of the decade-long program would be $200 billion, a sum Trump himself concedes is "not a large amount." The White House contends it would lure a far larger pool of state, local and private money off the sidelines, steering as much as $1.8 trillion to needs as diverse as highways, rural broadband service, drinking water systems and veterans hospitals. (Maybe even commercial spaceflight, one recently leaked draft suggests.)

The administration isn't expected to issue full details for two to four weeks. But already, the details that have emerged are unnerving some key infrastructure supporters in Congress, who say it's unrealistic to propose such a mammoth program without money to pay for it. They also note that Trump's budget proposals have called for cutting existing infrastructure programs at the Department of Transportation and the Army Corps of Engineers.

“I think we’re down to minus about $200 billion, because I don’t think they have enough money to fund the current program, let alone anything on top of it,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who recently sat in on a meeting with lawmakers and administration officials on the plan. “I don’t see any money from what I’ve seen so far at all. Zero. Not $200 billion, certainly not a trillion.”

Democratic Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel dismissed the plan last week as "fairy dust. ... It’s not real."

The White House defends its approach as an overdue shift from decades of federal spending and control.

"The Washington establishment still thinks that infrastructure can only be built correctly if they make all the decisions and control the purse strings, but one look at the crumbling bridges and roads across America shows that approach has failed," deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said in a statement. "Instead of sending taxpayer money to DC only to have it eventually trickle back down to communities along with a host of new restrictions and requirements, the President wants to allow communities to keep more of their funds and make their own decisions, and to simplify the federal bureaucratic maze.”

But even some key Republicans have sounded cautious notes about Trump's blueprint, or at least the details that have trickled out so far.

"A lot of it, I think, will come down to how is it paid for,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a member of GOP leadership who, as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, will have a role to play in crafting the legislation to realize an infrastructure plan. “And, you know, the substance will matter, I think, in terms of whether or not there's bipartisan support for it."

Last summer, the GOP-led Senate Appropriations Committee expressed alarm at Trump's budget cuts and White House accusations of state and local “overreliance” on federal money. "The administration's approach is dangerously close to support for devolution of federal funding provided by the Highway Trust Fund," the committee wrote.

Administration officials have said they intend to pay for the plan's federal share with cuts elsewhere in the budget. They've declined to join the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in advocating an increase in the federal gasoline tax, and did not attempt to glean any infrastructure money from last year's overhaul of the federal tax code.

For the president, a victory on infrastructure would fulfill one of the striking themes of his campaign — that the developer who built skyscrapers such as Trump Tower is “the only one to fix the infrastructure of our country.” His stump speeches frequently bemoaned the “Third World” quality of American airports, the lack of any U.S. equivalent to Chinese bullet trains and the trillions of dollars spent reconstructing countries like Iraq.

“We will build the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports and the railways of tomorrow,” Trump pledged as he accepted the Republican nomination in July 2016. “This, in turn, will create millions of more jobs.”

The nation's needs are indeed immense, say groups like the American Society of Civil Engineers, which estimates the U.S. will require a total of $4.59 trillion in infrastructure investments by 2025 to avoid economic damage that would wipe out millions of jobs.

Some Democrats, like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, initially expressed a willingness to work with the new president on his plan. But then came a year's worth of Republican attempts to push through partisan bills targeting health care and taxes. Trump also stepped on his own sales pitch in August, when he followed up an infrastructure speech at Trump Tower by defending the “very fine people” who had marched in a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“Before the swearing-in, it was the one area of hope Democrats had that we could find some common ground, ’cause we agreed that infrastructure desperately needs serious investment in America to stay competitive," said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). "But I don’t think there are many of us left who labor under that hope any longer.”

From the start, the particulars of the plan have been a moving target.

During his campaign, Trump originally promised at least a $550 billion plan, which he suggested would be at least partly funded by new government debt. Weeks before the election, his "action plan" for his first 100 days in office increased the pledge to “$1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years,” from both public and private money.

Then the 100-day time frame came and went. The idea of combining infrastructure and tax reform also bloomed and wilted, as did Trump’s comment to Bloomberg in May that he "would certainly consider" hiking the gas tax. By the spring, the administration was talking budget cuts while settling on $200 billion as the plan’s federal portion.

“I think there was definitely a little bit of a bait-and-switch on this where there were a lot of promises made and none of it delivered on,” said Maryland Rep. John Delaney, an early presidential hopeful for the 2020 Democratic nomination who’s been vocal on infrastructure spending.

A purported plan draft leaked to POLITICO last week increased complaints in states like New Jersey and New York, where officials were already dismayed by the Trump administration’s refusal to pay half the costs of a $13 billion rail project under the Hudson River. The draft — whose accuracy the White House would not confirm — indicated that federal grants under one major part of the plan could pay no more than 20 percent of a project’s costs.

“It’s a direct repudiation of the federal role in building infrastructure,” said one person familiar with the Hudson project, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Such a meager federal share means the plan “really is the Hunger Games,” the person added. “It’s pitting project against project, regardless of the merit.”

For most transit agencies, accustomed to a 50 percent federal share for most capital investment grants, reducing that to 20 percent is “a nonstarter,” transit consultant Jeff Boothe said. He said it could disrupt work in communities where voters approved ballot measures to raise money for projects.

According to the draft, a separate pot of money in Trump’s plan would help fund block grants for rural projects such as transportation, broadband, water and electricity. And another segment would pay as much as 80 percent of the capital costs of “transformative” projects, which it defines as “exploratory and ground-breaking ideas.”

The draft offers no examples of transformative ideas, although Trump told The Wall Street Journal in March that he was interested in Tesla founder Elon Musk’s concept of a high-speed “Hyperloop” that would move both people and goods underground.

The most important part of the plan may be where the administration sees the federal government’s future role in infrastructure, said John Cline, a lobbyist and former Republican DOT official under President George H.W. Bush. “I think the over-focus on a dollar number is diverting attention from the key issue here, " he said.

Administration officials have been clear that they want to shift decisions about infrastructure funding onto lower levels of government.

All the while, officials say they would remain "agnostic" about how states and localities drum up money to pay for their projects. That could mean local or state tax hikes, or it could open the door to government partnerships with private investors who might recoup their money with tolls or other fees.

The White House raised expectations for a major role for public-private partnerships when it hired D.J. Gribbin — a DOT alumnus with a private-sector background in setting up such arrangements — to be the blueprint’s mastermind. But that made it all the more striking when meetings between Trump and Capitol Hill tax-writers last fall generated multiple reports that the president had soured on those partnerships, citing cases when they didn’t work out.

"He said he doesn’t like public-private partnerships," Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) told POLITICO after an Oct. 18 meeting at which Trump echoed his concerns. "We’re with him on that — let’s use real dollars.”

Republicans from rural red states have also expressed objections about relying too heavily on partnerships, arguing that sparsely populated rural communities would be at a disadvantage in trying to attract investors.

After Trump's comments, one administration official downplayed the role these partnerships were ever going to play in the package, even though former White House press secretary Sean Spicer had once described them as the “cornerstone.”

Trump’s criticism “was sort of expressing an understanding that these projects don’t always work as envisioned, and they can be complicated and they can be costly,” the administration official said in a December interview. “And sometimes they don’t end up the way that the state and local governments hoped that they would end.”

lede-agenda-5thingsmissed-colorized.jpg
5 things Trump did this week while you weren't looking
By DANNY VINIK
Regardless of how cities and states decide to raise money, administration officials have said Trump’s blueprint would heavily favor projects that put more of their own dollars on the table. And that has some infrastructure supporters worried.

“We have real concerns about further burdening states and localities with what should be a federal responsibility,” said Larry Willis, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department, a labor coalition that could be a key ally for Trump’s proposal. The danger, he said, is that many projects “are going to get left behind.”

Others aren't so worried. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a longtime supporter of federal infrastructure spending, said he doesn't expect Trump's plan to change the federal formulas that specify how money from Washington traditionally makes its way to states for highway and transit projects, since the new programs would be distinct from longstanding practice.

"One of the few things that's worked well in government is the way we've done the formulas," said Inhofe, a former chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

But to Democrats like Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, any deal that upends the decades-old federal-local funding split would be tough to swallow.

"That's a pretty hard sell to the states, and I'd say it's going to be a hard sell to us," he said.

Brianna Gurciullo, Tanya Snyder and Dana Rubinstein contributed to this report.

I can't imagine Congress agreeing to this.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't know, I can imagine the Quisling Congress agreeing to almost anything, if Trump and their donors tell them to.

[Thanas]

What a day.


First, Trump triggers a constitutional crisis by refusing to enforce sanctions against Russia. A law that passed the Senate 98-2 and the House 419-3, with no veto. Ergo, Trump is refusing to do his job. WTF-Bomb 1.

Then, the GOP is now investigating the FBI for deep state links and also decides to release a fabricated memo that will most likely serve as the cover for shutting down Mueller. WTF-Bomb 2

Third, Andrew McCabe, who was #2 at the FBI and a target for Trump due to his wife and his cooperation with Mueller, was just forced out.

It seems pretty clear that this administration is behaving in a treasonous manner (just look at how they seem to be more aiming at protecting Putin than obeying the constitution) and that the GOP is preparing political cover to shutter the FBI and the Mueller probe.

If I were in the USA I would look towards protesting right now. This is one of the moments where it will be decided if democracy survives or not. Inaction and not picking a side now is no longer an option.

[aerius]

If I were in the USA I would look towards protesting right now. This is one of the moments where it will be decided if democracy survives or not. Inaction and not picking a side now is no longer an option.

The rape will continue until the people give a shit. Which won't happen until they're so broke that their cell phone and internet plans get cut off. Or the useless mainstream media decides to get off their asses and do their fucking jobs for once.

[Civil War Man]

Then, the GOP is now investigating the FBI for deep state links and also decides to release a fabricated memo that will most likely serve as the cover for shutting down Mueller. WTF-Bomb 2

As a bonus, the GOP members of the committee who are releasing the fabricated memo are also actively suppressing the release of a memo written by the Democratic members detailing information that the GOP memo intentionally omitted in order to push an anti-FBI narrative.

[Civil War Man]

Third, Andrew McCabe, who was #2 at the FBI and a target for Trump due to his wife and his cooperation with Mueller, was just forced out.

For a bit of optimism, I just learned that Wray appointed a guy named David Bowditch to replace McCabe. Bowditch is apparently career FBI, and has been a police officer, SWAT sniper, member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and had made a name for himself going after gangs. So, there is a decent chance that McCabe's being replaced by someone who is even worse for Trump.

[Broomstick]

Frankly, I'm not expecting mass protects until things get a LOT worse. Trump & Co have taken control of the narrative, they are getting away with more and more shady shit, and the masses are just not uncomfortable enough to give enough damn to risk their freedom (because protesters WILL be jailed before this is all over) in the privatized jail system.

When the pot boils over it could get very, very ugly indeed.

[Thanas]

Third, Andrew McCabe, who was #2 at the FBI and a target for Trump due to his wife and his cooperation with Mueller, was just forced out.

For a bit of optimism, I just learned that Wray appointed a guy named David Bowditch to replace McCabe. Bowditch is apparently career FBI, and has been a police officer, SWAT sniper, member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and had made a name for himself going after gangs. So, there is a decent chance that McCabe's being replaced by someone who is even worse for Trump.

If the replacement would have been worse for Trump then there would be no reason to replace McCabe in the first place.

[Simon_Jester]

Except for Trump being petty and stupid, both of which he is known to be.

[Thanas]

Except for Trump being petty and stupid, both of which he is known to be.

No, sorry. This is just one of those "things are not as bad as they seem" dreams, which I refuse to participate in. The president of the United states, while refusing to enforce a valid law, has removed the 2nd-in-command of the FBI while Paul Ryan is calling for a "cleansing" of the FBI.

Meanwhile people think that it is not as bad as it sounds. Newsflash - it is exactly as bad as it sounds.