Thursday, September 21, 2023
WELL. NOT SO EXTRAORDINARY, even though Romney seems to be an honorable Republican senator. If the matter at hand is positively noteworthy, Trump wants to announce it himself so he can take personal …
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WELL. NOT SO EXTRAORDINARY, even though Romney seems to be an honorable Republican senator.
If the matter at hand is positively noteworthy, Trump wants to announce it himself so he can take personal credit. If it’s negative, as in this case, he needs someone that he hasn’t fired lately who can be blamed — Mike Pompeo maybe.
In any case, it’s close to the end of Donald’s term and he will just let it all slide. I personally think there are secrets in Moscow and I can’t see where China figures into things.
And lately he’s been busy with other things, such as planting the suggestion that he was halted only by nervous aides from calling for $2,000 stimulus checks for struggling average Americans. He has his personal bundle socked away behind small print now and just wants the impression cast about that he’s all for the country’s desperate common citizens.
Especially now that early voting has begun in the Georgia runoff elections, and in 10 or 11 days it will be determined if the U.S. Senate will turn from red to blue — and Donald may have to fall back on Plan B (“It was all rigged”).
It was a bit stunning the other day when Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller (appointed following the firing of Mark Esper about Nov. 20) ordered a “Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation” with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition. A couple of dozen scheduled meetings were thus stalled — after Donald Trump already had delayed the beginning of Biden’s transition while refusing to accept results of the 2020 presidential election.
At about the same time a New York Times headline read “More hacking found as officials warn about ‘grave risk’ to U.S.” The story, datelined Washington, D.C., began: “Federal officials issued an urgent warning Thursday that hackers who U.S. intelligence agencies believe were working for the Kremlin, used a far wider variety of tools than previously known to penetrate government systems and said that the cyber offensive was ‘a grave risk to the federal government’ . . . Microsoft said Thursday that it had identified 40 companies, government agencies and think tanks that the suspected Russian hackers, at a minimum, stole data from. Nearly half are private technology firms, Microsoft said, many of them cybersecurity firms like FireEye that are charged with securing vast sections of the public and private sector . . .”
I liked the consensus headline that wrapped it all up late Saturday in the Daily Mail: “Trump blames Pompeo for blaming Russia for huge cyber attack as he breaks his silence to say CHINA could be responsible and that voting machines may have been hit — but claims it is ‘well under control.’”
The story noted: Donald Trump has hit out at Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for blaming Russia for the huge cyber attack on the U.S. Tagging Pompeo. The president tweeted Saturday that China was behind the unprecedented hack on U.S. government agencies and private sector firms, after the Secretary of State said Friday that the Kremlin was to blame.
Others who are pointing a finger at Russia (and see absolutely no involvement by China) include Chris Krebs, former head of the Cybersecurity and infrastructure Security Agency — fired last month, not long after he publicly pushed back against Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud in the election.
Also recent presidential scapegoat William Marr, U.S. Attorney General, who resigned this past week. And Republican Senator Mitt Romney, who warned this week about Russia and the record cyber attack: “They potentially have the capacity to cripple us economically, they went to our businesses. They have the potential to also cripple us with regards to our water, electricity and so forth.”
Trump, meanwhile, was tweeting, “There could also have been a hit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election, which is now obvious that I won big making it an even more corrupted embarrassment for the USA,” also tagging Director of National Intelligence John Radcliffe.
Among the federal agencies hacked in the massive cyberattack are the U.S. Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Energy, Treasury and Commerce. But things are “well under control”?
Meanwhile . . . The Army has soldiers, the Navy has sailors, and Donald Trump’s, new Space Force now has “guardians,” Vice-President Mike Pence said Friday in announcing the name chosen for the new military personnel. The guardians, said Pence, will “ensure that America remains as dominant in space, and from space as we are on land and sea and air.”
All we need are a few good hackers.
And for current politics in general, see:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/18/telnaes-trump-republican-rats-cartoon/?arc404=true
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Justin Hale
Our intelligence services say we were hacked, was it Russia? was it China?, who, other than the Trump-Haters care?. I just hope that our hacking of their systems is equally as good. And that also applies to the new Space Force created by President Trump.
If I were the POTUS I wouldn't sign that "covid/stimulus/pork" bill either. Once again our "representatives" in Congress put up a bill loaded with Billions of our tax dollars going to other countries, putting U.S. further into debt. Hey, if were going to go further into debt we should do it to help American citizens, not to finance $85.5 million for assistance to Cambodia, $134 million to Burma, $1.3 billion for Egypt and the Egyptian military, which will go out and buy almost exclusively Russian military equipment. $25 million for democracy and gender programs in Pakistan, $505 million to Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. $40 million for the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, which is not even open for business. $1 billion for the Smithsonian and an additional $154 million for the National Gallery of Art. Likewise, these facilities are essentially not open. Of course the MSM paints Trump as the Grinch who stole Christmas for the nit-wits among U.S.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020 Report this
MargeS
The nit-wit is back, spreading Trump Junk, Bet you believe he really did win.
Friday, December 25, 2020 Report this
Justin Hale
Is that the best you can do MS?
Do I believe Trump won the election, according to the vote count, he did not. My only question is how many of those votes were illegal/fraudulent? I asked you weeks ago if you think our electoral system is flawless, as yet you haven't been able to answer that question.
Friday, December 25, 2020 Report this
Thomas Camfield
Here's an Associated Press view of things on Christmas morning. We'll see how it goes. Don't think I'll spend the day worried about Donald's golf game or occasional tweet—or looking around for non-existent evidence of voting fraudulence.
LISA MASCARO and ANDREW TAYLOR
Thu, December 24, 2020, 10:42 PM PST
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s sudden demand for $2,000 checks for most Americans was swiftly rejected by House Republicans as his haphazard actions have thrown a massive COVID relief and government funding bill into chaos.
The rare Christmas Eve session of the House lasted just minutes, with help for millions of Americans awaiting Trump's signature on the bill. Unemployment benefits, eviction protections and other emergency aid, including smaller $600 checks, are at risk. Trump’s refusal of the $900 billion package, which is linked to $1.4 trillion government funds bill, could spark a federal shutdown at midnight Monday.
“We’re not going to let the government shut down, nor are we going to let the American people down,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the majority leader.
With its fate still up in the air, the bill arrived Thursday night in Florida, where the president has been spending the holiday s golfing and tweeting, a person familiar with its movement said.
The optics appear terrible for Republicans, and the outgoing president, as the nation suffers through the worst holiday season many can remember. Families are isolated under COVID precautions and millions of American households are devastated without adequate income, food or shelter. The virus death toll of 327,000-plus is rising.
Trump is ending his presidency much the way he started it — sowing confusion and reversing promises all while contesting the election and courting a federal shutdown over demands his own party in Congress will not meet.
The congressional Republican leaders have been left almost speechless by Trump’s year-end scorching of their work.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy helped negotiate the year-end deal, a prized bipartisan compromise, that won sweeping approval this week in the House and Senate after the White House assured GOP leaders that Trump supported it.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin boasted that the $600 checks all sides had agreed to for Americans would be in the mail in a week.
Instead, Washington is now hurtling toward a crisis with COVID aid about to collapse, as the president is at his Mar-a-Lago club. He has been lashing out at GOP leaders for refusing to join his efforts to overturn the election that Joe Biden won when the Electoral College votes are tallied in Congress on Jan. 6.
"The best way out of this is for the president to sign the bill,” Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri said Thursday. “And I still hope that’s what he decides.”
Racing to salvage the year-end legislation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mnuchin are in talks on options.
Democrats will recall House lawmakers to Washington for a vote Monday on Trump’s proposal, with a roll call that would put all members on record as supporting or rejecting the $2,000 checks. They are also considering a Monday vote on a stop-gap measure to at least avert a federal shutdown. It would keep the government running until Biden is inaugurated Jan. 20. Lawmakers will also be asked to override Trump's veto of a must-pass Defense bill.
After presiding over the short House session, an exasperated Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., decried the possibility that the COVID assistance may collapse.
“It is Christmas Eve, but it is not a silent night. All is not calm. For too many, nothing is bright," she said on Capitol Hill.
A town hall she hosted the night before "had people crying, people terrified of what is going to happen,” she said. One father recently told her he had to tell his children there would be no Santa Claus this year.
The president’s push to increase direct payments for most Americans from $600 to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for couples drives support from Democrats but splits the GOP with a politically difficult test of their loyalty to the president.
Republican lawmakers traditionally balk at the big spending, never fully embracing Trump’s populist approach. Many have opposed larger $2,000 checks as too costly and poorly targeted.
On a conference call Wednesday House Republican lawmakers complained that Trump threw them under the bus, according to one Republican on the private call and granted anonymity to discuss it. Most had voted for the package and they urged GOP leaders to hit the cable news shows to explain its benefits, the person said.
Yet the president has found common ground with Democrats, particularly leading liberals who support the $2,000 payments as the best way to help struggling Americans. Democrats only settled for the lower number to compromise with Republicans.
Even if the House is able to approve Trump's $2,000 checks on Monday, that measure would likely die in the GOP-controlled Senate, which is due back in session on Tuesday.
The president's unpredictable demands are creating more Trump-related headaches for Georgia GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who are fighting for their political lives — and for continued GOP control of the Senate — in a pair of Jan. 5 Georgia run-off elections. They are being forced to choose whether to back or buck Trump, potentially angering voters on all sides.
The clash Thursday unfolded as the Democratic-controlled House convened for a routine pro forma session, which had been scheduled before Trump’s sudden moves, when lawmakers anticipated no business being conducted.
Instead, the 12-minute House session morphed into a procedural brawl as Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, sought the unanimous approval of all House members to pass the bill with Trump’s proposal. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who was not present in the nearly-empty chamber, refused.
House Republicans then tried, and failed, to win unanimous approval of their own proposal to revisit routine foreign aid funding, which Trump had cited as one of his key objections to the overall spending package.
The year-end package Trump railed against as a “disgrace” is the product of months of work. It would establish a temporary $300 per week supplemental jobless benefit, along with a new round of subsidies for hard-hit businesses, restaurants and theaters and money for schools. Money is included for health care providers and to help with COVID vaccine distribution. Trump took aim at foreign aid funds in the package he has agreed to in the past and asked for in his yearly budget.
The final text of the more than 5,000-page bill required days to be compiled but Pelosi announced Thursday that it was completed and being sent to the White House for Trump’s signature . . .etc., etc . . .
Friday, December 25, 2020 Report this
MargeS
I have commented on the question of fraudulent votes before. You just don't want to remember. "According to the vote count he did not" Win the election, Trump. So you have bought into Trumps lies because you don't want to believe that he lost. The way you answer a question is with a bit of slyness. Finally, one more time, the vote was counted, those states that had questions about the vote, followed the law and had recounts. Nothing changed, Biden still won. So no I don't thing fraudulent votes caused Trump to lose the election.
Friday, December 25, 2020 Report this
Justin Hale
Tom, what's wrong with cutting the pork to foreign nations and giving that money to U.S. citizens? Do you think supporting gender studies in Pakistan is more important than supporting your fellow citizens?
Friday, December 25, 2020 Report this
Justin Hale
MS, recounting an illegally cast ballot a thousand times does not make it a legal vote. The problem is not in counting the votes cast, but in determining if those votes counted were legal or not. Only a nit-wit would argue that there were no/zero fraudulent votes cast.
Friday, December 25, 2020 Report this
Thomas Camfield
More from on line: “Despite the impending deadline on the Covid relief bill, a potential looming government shutdown, and the ongoing surge in coronavirus cases, Donald Trump still found time to lash out at fashion and lifestyle magazines.”
Their crime? Not featuring first lady Melania Trump on their covers during the administration’s four years in office. In a Christmas Day tweet, the president referred to the first lady as “the greatest of all time” and lambasted the fashion press as “fake news”.
The president’s moaning about the lack of adulation for his wife comes as many Americans experienced a lean holiday season, with millions facing the potential loss of unemployment insurance.
As one Twitter responder pt it: “You were wondering whether Donald Trump is focused today on the 18,500 Americans who've died in the last week of COVID-19. Nope; his big issue is how many fashion magazines his wife has been featured in.”
Or as another responder put it: “Great to see your priorities . . . Terrorism in Nashville; Pandemic 320,000 dead; Russian Bounties; Russian Cyber attack; About to attack Iran . . .”
Should we see mothers all in a dither over a fashion mag she can’t even afford—as her children stare at near-empty plates on the dinner table?
Saturday, December 26, 2020 Report this
Justin Hale
Tom, who gives a siht about what Trump Twits?
Saturday, December 26, 2020 Report this
MargeS
Never said there were no fraudulent votes counted but they did not cause Trump to lose. That was on him. The Election is over, Trump lost, Biden won fair and square. Get over it. President-Elected Joe Biden will do a 100 % better job for America.
Saturday, December 26, 2020 Report this
MargeS
Apparently 70 million or so Trump supporters. But they would give a S**it even if the majority of Americans really were just disgusted by it.
Saturday, December 26, 2020 Report this
Justin Hale
OK, so MS admits that there were fraudulent/illegal votes cast. Next question, does MS know how many? who does? I certainly don't. If there is no investigating that number will never be known. And that applies to all of the elections, not just for POTUS but for state and local offices as well. Or should we just assume a new paradigm and say if my person wins I don't care?
"Apparently 70 million or so Trump supporters", not so MS. It's the biased Trump-hating media who hang on his every tweet, that's the only time I ever hear about a Trump Tweet since I do not follow or care one bit what he Tweets. One of these days the MSM and assorted Trump Haters will realize that he loves to rattle their cages, and they take the bait every time.
Sunday, December 27, 2020 Report this
MargeS
The great thing is Trump will not be around. So, Happy New Year! Better than the last four years.
Sunday, December 27, 2020 Report this
Justin Hale
MS.
Proved my point, as long as my guy wins who cares .....
Sunday, December 27, 2020 Report this
MargeS
The only point you have is you haven't been paying attention for the last four years.
Monday, December 28, 2020 Report this