Trump's America, March 2017: Using His Inside VOICE

a BUS, hopefully!!! hahahahaha!!!

meanwhile my boy Acosta's hearing is going swimmingly:

On other issues, Acosta engaged in a long and contentious exchange with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, over his commitment to protect workers from the health risks of inhaling dust containing crystalline silica.

The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration last year proposed two regulations that would restrict the use of crystalline silica and require contractors to increase protections for their workers.

When inhaled, silica dust can cause cancer and respiratory illness. It is a chemical compound often released from the drilling and cutting of brick, stone and concrete on construction sites or during home remodeling projects.

“Either you’re going to stand up for 150 million American workers, including people being poisoned by silica, or you’re not,” Warren said.

Acosta said that, if confirmed to head the Labor Department, he would first have to review all regulations under a recent executive order from Trump that directed the heads of major federal agencies to eliminate or modify unnecessarily costly or burdensome rules.

“The point I’m trying to make is the president has directed each Cabinet officer to review all rules and to make determinations if any rules should be revised,” Acosta said. “So based on that executive action, I cannot make a commitment.”

That hedge prompted a sharp retort from Warren.

“You’re telling me you can’t say we ought to not take out rules that (if eliminated) will cause people to die,” Warren said.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article140081793.html#storylink=cpy

Whole lotta folks of a national security/intelligence bent on Twitter basically asking WTF re Nunes right now.

"If a buck can be made from it? Yes ma'am thats exactly what I'm telling you" xp

Spicer getting hammered.

by questions or booze

Questions first, booze immediately after.

Russia, ACA, bam bam bam.

It's about 50-50 at this point that Ryan can't get the 27+ votes he needs to pass the bill. Until yesterday I thought it was 70-30 in the bill's favor.

Damn.

the Trump/Russia story has gotten so dense I'm wondering if there should be a separate thread just for untangling it, piecing together connections, contradictions, statements, theories, etc

uh, I think you'll find the Russia story was completely fabricated by the Democrats, to cover for the fact that they lost so bad!!

so much smoke we can't see the fire xp

i wish all the deomcrats / communists would stop being such sore losers and get over the russia and birth certificate stuff already. i mean, we haven't even gotten to the bottom of what happened that fateful day in benghazi yet

US Weekly has the info Americans really want to know.

See? Real news!

my preacher says that rich men can only go to heaven if they have eyes like needles (or camels) i forget which and if they don't share a bedroom with their third wife. also, taxes are theft, and health is no right, no sir, not according to jesus!

No big deal, just an extra $60 million a year to take care of Trump's scattered family and second homes.

"unusually complicated lifestyle", that's a WaPo keeper.

Wish it was weed smoke. These people all being high would both 1) make the interactions far more stable if not congenial and b) provide a much clearer explanation for the behavior exhibited.

I'm kinda ambivalent about all the Russia stuff tbh. On the one hand I'm deeply skeptical that there's any quid-pro-quo smoking gun out there. On the other hand it's very clear that Yam Co. are so spooked about it that they will lie about it (as they already have) and the odds of one of them doing it under oath seem p high. If I was in the IC trying to take down this administration my strategy would be to leak enough to get somebody subpoenaed, wait until they lie under oath, and then leak evidence that contradicts their testimony, which would get people sent to trial and (maybe) jail. Coverup always worse (and easier to prove) than the crime, etc.

To my mind it's been less Supervillain Putin and more scheming crime bros, but there ya go.

yeah it's hard to really tell because the administration constantly act like children trying to argue their way out of trouble. like it's easy to speculate that they know the Manafort thing could sink them and that's why they're trying so hard to pretend that they barely know him, but on the other hand they're confrontational and dishonest about basically everything, so why should it mean anything at all?

Wait, Nunes is still going or something?

https://twitter.com/tomwatson/status/844628015845904385

Wow - Nunes just said there are "multiple FISA warrants out there" involving Trump.

First response to that:

The FOIA lawyers will be buying Nunes drinks for years.

wtf is going on this is v odd

A little earlier:

https://twitter.com/Carrasquillo/status/844625389544726528

Nunes says it's appropriate to brief Trump admin while they're being investigated because it had nothing to do with Russia connections.

is this a coup or is Nunes realizing the awesome career-building possibilities of Twitter

is this nunes trying to give trump cover about the bullshit "obama wiretaps?" seems like trump will surely point to this as the evidence unless im missing something

how is this not Nunes leaking tons of information to the press?

is this nunes trying to give trump cover about the bullshit "obama wiretaps?" seems like trump will surely point to this as the evidence unless im missing something

this is what it looks like to me

If it is, the fact he kept saying it's fully legal is...amusing.

yeah it kinda undercuts Trump's argument - also keeps this story alive, which is also bad for Trump.

xxxxxpost why is he saying he has concerns if he's admitting it was legally collected? is his concern over Trump improprieties?

because none of this matches the bombshell Trump dropped of "illegal wiretapping" during the election and so far his counterparts on the committee are saying they've heard none of htis.

seems sloppy

I think his concerns were over "unmasking" of additional names, whatever that means. He said someone brought this to him who "thought he should know". That kind of sounds like a leak to me.

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/844635581850292224

Members say the surveillance picked up senior transition officials talking ABOUT Trump - not Trump's own communications.

Could this have all been a dumb Trump misunderstanding? Trump tweets Trump Tower was tapped by Obama. Where did he hear this? He eventually concedes from some stupid TV show or something. Unless ... he was briefed on it and blabbed classified material? And still got it wrong, thinking that the Obama admin had tapped a bunch of his people and Trump Tower? (When it fact the Obama white house had FISA'd up all sorts of other cats, and not at Trump Tower.) I dunno, it's all so weird and confusing. So ... there *may* have been multiple FISA taps, just not at Trump Tower specifically? Which would make the denials from literally everyone ... accurate? In a sense?

Regardless, that this has been leaked is much less of a bombshell than, if true, that there were multiple FISA warrants issued to watch Trump people. Which, again if true, seems like a massive fuck up on several fronts, especially if there has been an investigation going for almost a year.

The Russian poker game, the Chinese bank...lots of tap-worthy Trump Tower occupants.

But didn't the FBI et al. say definitively there was no FISA tap at Trump Tower?

Trump says he feels "somewhat vindicated", despite...

But "it has everything to do with possible surveillance activities ... and I have the duty to tell him that," Nunes said.

Asked if this supported Trump's claim that Obama wiretapped him, Nunes said "that never happened."

So this is going to turn into Comey's Hillary memo one week prior to election again, great. get it right this time, press.

So confused. So some FISA shit caught Trump talking or people talking about Trump? Why did this Nunes dude rush off to tell Trump, especially if Trump or people around him are being investigated? I can't tell who is lying/wrong and about what ...

Republicans are the goddamn Lannisters.

That doesn't help. As in, evil as fuck but get away with? Self-defeating? Successful schemers? Tragic losers?

He just meant the incest.

This quote from Nunes kinda sums it up:

"There's multiple number of FISA warrants out there, but there's nothing criminal at all involved"

Yeah that...uh.

i want to break so many things right now

Jeremy Bash on MSNBC saying this is a spectacular breakdown in how the oversight committee should work, they're not supposed to be briefing the president, bringing him into his own investigation and tipping him off

because the way this will play out is well-worn territory.

*Trump and his idiot base, regardless of what comes out afterward, will say this is "vindication" just as they did when Comey said he was "reviewing additional emails"

*As already suggested, it will come out that all of this was above water/legal not of controversy

*Nobody in the GOP is going to hold Nunes accountable, Nunes won't resign

*Trump will still be in the weeds for other reasons but will be able to deflect some of the blow.

ok please tell me I'm wrong about all of the above (cos I don't want to be righta bout this)

xpost Oversight or intel?

https://youtu.be/bg1sT4ILG0w

I'm deeply skeptical that there's any quid-pro-quo smoking gun out there.

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, March 22, 2017 12:05 PM (one hour ago)

i think everybody's skeptical. that's why they're/we're looking into it. but i'm not sure what "quid-pro-quo" is doing there.

xpost
he said oversight, but you're right, he's not on that committee, that's that other asshole