***Official Political Discussion Thread***

https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-...s-trump-to-remove-epa-chief-pruitt-1523033081
White House Chief of Staff Urges Trump to Remove EPA Chief Pruitt
Trump resists calls for Pruitt resignation as White House reviews controversies
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told President Donald Trump last week that he is convinced Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt needs to step down after a series of negative reports about his spending habits and management style, a White House official said Friday.

Though Mr. Kelly and other White House aides have concluded Mr. Pruitt should leave, the president is not ready to fire him, the official said. Mr. Trump welcomes the deregulatory measures taken by Mr. Pruitt and also values him as a strong advocate for the president’s agenda, this person said.

The president, in a tweet Friday, said Mr. Pruitt is doing “a great job,” adding that he is “TOTALLY under siege.”

That comment follows remarks aboard Air Force One on Thursday in which he described Pruitt as doing “a fantastic job.” He also said Mr. Pruitt is a “fantastic person,” adding that he still has confidence in the EPA administrator.

However, the president said he would look into the various controversies surrounding Mr. Pruitt. “I have to look at them,” Mr. Trump said, during a flight home from a public appearance in West Virginia. “I’ll make that determination.”

An exit by Mr. Pruitt would come in the midst of a high-level staff shake-up by the president. Mr. Trump recently dismissed his secretary of state and national security adviser, and tapped a new appointee for the Central Intelligence Agency. Two of those positions will require Senate approval for their replacements, as would be the case for the EPA administrator.

The EPA declined to comment. Over his first year, Mr. Pruitt, a skeptic of climate change, repealed some of former President Barack Obama’s clean-air and other environmental policies. He also urged Mr. Trump to pull out of the Paris climate agreement—advice the president followed.

The White House said earlier this week it was conducting a review of Mr. Pruitt’s activities after news reports that he had rented accommodations in Washington at below-market rates from the family of an energy lobbyist.

Mr. Pruitt also has faced questions over his travel expenses, and he had a testy interview with Fox News when he was pressed over large pay raises reportedly given to two EPA employees.

Inside the White House, aides have concluded that Mr. Pruitt’s position is untenable, with a drumbeat of news reports raising questions about his managerial judgment and spending practices.

The New York Times reported late Thursday that Mr. Pruitt had reassigned or demoted several officials who raised concerns about spending and management at the EPA.

An EPA spokesman responded to the report by calling the officials “disgruntled employees who have either been dismissed or reassigned.”

Mr. Pruitt has defended his living arrangements and said he reversed the pay raises given to two staff members once he found out about them. On the travel costs, the EPA has said Mr. Pruitt’s protective services detail moved him to a higher class due to security protocols.

White House officials were also upset about reports that Mr. Trump phoned Mr. Pruitt on Monday night in an effort to encourage him. Two White House officials said it was the EPA, not the White House, that alerted media to the calls.
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It's hilarious how Trump just CAN'T keep his mouth shut. He has all the power to follow through on his absurdly evil ideas but literally foils his own plans by running his mouth.
 
I've lost count of the amount of scandalous reports on Pruitt tbh, here's a new one.
All sorts of buffoonery in this report. He has a 20-member full-time security detail :sick:
https://apnews.com/e2fdc3fe88be4327...n=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP
AP sources: EPA chief spent millions on security and travel
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt’s concern with his safety came at a steep cost to taxpayers as his swollen security detail blew through overtime budgets and at times diverted officers away from investigating environmental crimes to protect him.
Altogether, the agency spent millions of dollars for a 20-member full-time security detail that is three times the size of his predecessor’s part-time security contingent.
New details in Pruitt’s expansive spending for security and travel emerged from agency sources and documents reviewed by The Associated Press. They come as the embattled EPA leader fends off allegations of profligate spending and ethical missteps that have imperiled his job.

Shortly after arriving in Washington, Pruitt demoted the career staff member heading his security detail and replaced him with EPA Senior Special Agent Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, a former Secret Service agent who operates a private security company. An EPA official with direct knowledge of Pruitt’s security spending says Perrotta oversaw a rapid expansion of the EPA chief’s security detail to accommodate guarding him day and night, even on family vacations and when Pruitt was home in Oklahoma.

The EPA official spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Perrotta also signed off on new procedures that let Pruitt fly first-class on commercial airliners, with the security chief typically sitting next to him with other security staff farther back in the plane. Pruitt’s premium status gave him and his security chief access to VIP airport lounges.

The EPA official said there are legitimate concerns about Pruitt’s safety, given public opposition to his rollbacks of anti-pollution measures.

But Pruitt’s ambitious domestic and international travel led to rapidly escalating costs, with the security detail racking up so much overtime that many hit annual salary caps of about $160,000. The demands of providing 24-hour coverage even meant taking some investigators away from field work, such as when Pruitt traveled to California for a family vacation.

The EPA official said total security costs approached $3 million when pay is added to travel expenses.

Pruitt has come under intense scrutiny for ethics issues and outsized spending. Among the concerns: massive raises for two of closest aides and his rental of a Capitol Hill condo tied to a lobbyist who represents fossil fuel clients.

At least three congressional Republicans and a chorus of Democrats have called for Pruitt’s ouster. But President Donald Trump is so far standing by him.

A review of Pruitt’s ethical conduct by White House officials is underway, adding to probes by congressional oversight committees and EPA’s inspector general.

Pruitt, 49, was closely aligned with the oil and gas industry as Oklahoma’s state attorney general before being tapped by Trump. Trump has praised Pruitt’s relentless efforts to scrap, delay or rewrite Obama-era environmental regulations. He also has championed budget cuts and staff reductions at the agency so deep that even Republican budget hawks in Congress refused to implement them.

EPA’s press office has refused to comment on the cost of Pruitt’s security, saying doing so could imperil his personal safety. Neither EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman nor Perrotta responded to calls Friday.

But other sources within EPA and agency documents released through public information requests help provide a window into the ballooning costs.

In his first three months in office, before pricey overseas trips to Italy and Morocco, costs for Pruitt’s security detail hit more than $832,000, according to EPA documents released through a public information request.

Nearly three dozen EPA security and law enforcement agents were assigned to Pruitt, according to a summary of six weeks of weekly schedules obtained by Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

Those schedules show multiple EPA security agents accompanied Pruitt on a family vacation to California that featured a day at Disneyland and a New Year’s Day football game where his home state Oklahoma Sooners were playing in the Rose Bowl. Multiple agents also accompanied Pruitt to a baseball game at the University of Kentucky and at his house outside Tulsa, during which no official EPA events were scheduled.

On weekend trips home for Sooners football games, when taxpayers weren’t paying for his ticket, the EPA official said Pruitt flew coach. He sometimes used a “buddy pass” obtained with frequent flyer miles accumulated by Ken Wagner, a former law partner whom Pruitt hired as a senior adviser at EPA at a salary of more than $172,000. Taxpayers still covered the airfare for the administrator’s security detail.

Pruitt’s predecessor, Gina McCarthy, had a security detail that numbered about a half dozen, less than a third the size of Pruitt’s. She flew coach and was not accompanied by security during her off hours, like on weekend trips home to Boston.

Pruitt has said his use of first-class airfare was initiated following unpleasant interactions with other travelers. In one incident, someone yelled a profanity as he walked through the airport.

But a nationwide search of state and federal court records by AP finds no case where anyone has been arrested or charged with threatening Pruitt.

Pruitt was accompanied by nine aides and a security detail during a trip to Italy in June that cost more than $120,000. He visited the U.S. Embassy in Rome and took a private tour of the Vatican before briefly attending a meeting of G-7 environmental ministers in Bologna.

Private Italian security guards hired by Perrotta helped arrange an expansive motorcade for Pruitt and his sizable entourage, according to the EPA official with direct knowledge of the trip. The source described the Italian security additions as personal friends of Perrotta, who joined Pruitt and his EPA staff for an hours-long dinner at an upscale restaurant.

Perrotta’s personal biography, on the website of his company, Sequoia Security Group, says that during his earlier stint with the Secret Service he worked with the Guardia di Finanza, the Italian finance police.

The EPA spent nearly $9,000 last year on increased counter-surveillance precautions for Pruitt, including a private contractor who swept his office for hidden listening devices and sophisticated biometric locks for the doors. The payment for the bug sweep went to a vice president at Perrotta’s security company.

The EPA official who spoke to AP said Perrotta also arranged the installation of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth for Pruitt’s office.

At least five EPA officials were placed on leave, reassigned or demoted after pushing back against spending requests such as a $100,000-a-month private jet membership, a bulletproof vehicle and $70,000 for furniture such as a bulletproof desk for the armed security officer always stationed inside the administrator’s office suite when he is in the building.

Those purchases were not approved. But Pruitt got an ornate refurbished desk comparable in grandeur to the one in the Oval Office.

Among the officials who faced consequences for resisting such spending was EPA Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Kevin Chmielewski, a former Trump campaign staffer who was placed on unpaid administrative leave this year.

The prior head of Pruitt’s security detail, Eric Weese, was demoted last year after he refused Pruitt’s demand to use the lights and sirens on his government-owned SUV to get him through Washington traffic to the airport and dinner reservations.
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And in other news, Trump has made a change to immigration policy
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-and-release-immigration-policy-idUSKCN1HD31Q
Trump signs memo ending 'catch and release' immigration policy
U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Friday ordering the end of a policy, known as “catch and release,” in which illegal immigrants are released from detention while awaiting a court hearing on their status.
As part of the memo, Trump asked Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to produce a list of military facilities that could be used to detain illegal immigrants.
 
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00dbc9e57ac373de2e8a57083033e9ba.gif

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/06/justice-dismisses-nunes-russia-trump-request-507340
DOJ dismisses Nunes demand for Trump-Russia document
The Department of Justice on Friday dismissed Rep. Devin Nunes demand for an unredacted copy of the document that initiated the FBI’s investigation of links between Russia and President Donald Trump’s campaign.

In a letter released Friday, the Justice Department reaffirmed their and the FBI’s response to House Intelligence Committees inquiries regarding the document.


Nunes, who is the House Intelligence Committee chairman, on Thursday sent a letter to the Justice Department demanding an unredacted copy of that document.

The Justice Department, however, have said they accommodated the committee in a “manner consistent with relevant legal precedents“ by providing members of the department and FBI to review the FISA applications and renewals in camera.

“The Department considers this an extraordinary accommodation based on unique facts and circumstances,” according to the letter, which was signed by Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd. “We are also extending this review opportunity to the members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Department will be in contact to arrange the appropriate review sessions in the near future.“
 
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elpablo21 said:
Click to expand...


LMAO could not believe this ish will happen here in the US. Duterte came up with the same concept of having bloggers and influencers cover his events coz the mainstream media is biased and publishes "fake stories"

Some stories that those bloggers did were about Duterte's clothes during an event, the food served, and just shallow, biased kind of reporting :lol:
 
RustyShackleford said:
BuzzFeed has an article about Bernire's problem gaining enough support in the African American community.

It includes this gem....



And by the looks of it, Bernie is still blaming Obama for the wave of white nationalism that cost the Dems so many seats. While his peeps still trying to deny he is blaming Obama. Well he denies it whenever he sees black people in the crowd.

Dis guy :smh: :lol:

I'll vote for him in the general happily. But this and his other comments have pretty much guaranteed I will be supporting someone else in the primary.
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While Bernie will forever be a folk hero for what he did in 2015-2016, a majority of white leftists are getting tired of Bernie's inability to be fearless and brutally honest in discussing race and racism in the US. We look around and see plenty of fellow leftists who can talk about economics as well as white supremacy. It is not all that hard to do.

So either Bernie needs to step his game up or perhaps those of us at the grass roots will have a different leftist challenging for the Democratic Nomination in 2019-2020.
 
Another DEVASTATING WEEK FOR LIBS .

1. Pruitt DESTROYING LIBERALISM with his condo and lobbying.

2. USA CLEARLY WINNING TRADE WARS Dow Jones falling showing the winning.

3. Wall getting built.

4. Don destroyed Lib talking points.

5. Coal Gang retreat is in a few months.
 
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