***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[noskey]

it's cool that ninja finally left NYC.

http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2...esecake-factory-over-maga-hat-report.amp.html

 

[Belgium]

I assume more sanctions will follow.
https://apnews.com/e54a1e06677248ca...-of-Iran's-central-bank-with-terror-sanctions
US hits head of Iran’s central bank with terror sanctions
The Trump administration is designating the head of Iran’s central bank as a terrorist and hitting him with sanctions intended to further isolate Iran from the global financial system.

The Treasury Department accuses Valiollah Seif of helping transfer millions of dollars to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group. Seif is the governor of the Iranian central bank. He’s being named a “specially designated global terrorist.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (mih-NOO’-shin) says Seif “covertly funneled” money from the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards through al-Bilad Islamic Bank in Iraq to help Hezbollah. The Iraqi bank and its chairman is also being punished with sanctions.

The U.S. says it’s also imposing so-called secondary sanctions on Seif. That means anyone who does business with him could be cut off from the U.S. financial system.

 

[MalcolmNewton]

Love a government that can track money transfers between foreign banks down to the nickels and pennies but can't bring in suspects for questioning who post for months how they're about to shoot up a school.

 

[Belgium]

Y I K E S
Pennsylvania congressman Mike Kelly talks about how good the economy has been for everyone and then follows up with this:
"I just think that if you come to the floor, and you know there's 60 minutes of debate, 30 minutes on each side.
And as I was sitting there I had 30 minutes of Democrats coming down and talking about how bad automobile people are because they discriminate against nonwhite buyers.
I said that’s not America. We don’t talk about those things.”

 

[RustyShackleford]

Something, something, something, both parties.

Rabble, rabble, rabble, the Clinton's never helped black people doe.

Squawk, squawk, squawk, voting doesn't matter.

White Supremacists Everywhere: Thanks for making it so easy.

 

[aepps20]

Something, something, something, both parties.

Rabble, rabble, rabble, the Clinton's never helped black people doe.

Squawk, squawk, squawk, voting doesn't matter.

White Supremacists Everywhere: Thanks for making it so easy.

FAX UPON FAX MACHINE UPON FACSIMILE B. Everything you posted is accurate.

 

[aepps20]

Only thing COMRADE rusty missed was rabble, rabble, rabble Bernie was robbed .

 

[gry60]

I assume more sanctions will follow.
https://apnews.com/e54a1e06677248ca...-of-Iran's-central-bank-with-terror-sanctions
US hits head of Iran’s central bank with terror sanctions
The Trump administration is designating the head of Iran’s central bank as a terrorist and hitting him with sanctions intended to further isolate Iran from the global financial system.

The Treasury Department accuses Valiollah Seif of helping transfer millions of dollars to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group. Seif is the governor of the Iranian central bank. He’s being named a “specially designated global terrorist.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (mih-NOO’-shin) says Seif “covertly funneled” money from the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards through al-Bilad Islamic Bank in Iraq to help Hezbollah. The Iraqi bank and its chairman is also being punished with sanctions.

The U.S. says it’s also imposing so-called secondary sanctions on Seif. That means anyone who does business with him could be cut off from the U.S. financial system.

Are we talking about the same Revolutionary Guard that has been linked to Trump's projects in former Soviet Republics?

 

[harlemtothebronx]

it's cool that ninja finally left NYC.

http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2...esecake-factory-over-maga-hat-report.amp.html

***** wore the hat to dinner with his family.

So many of his supporters display signs of being hungry for attention. It's pretty sad at this point. I recall seeing a younger white dude wearing the hat, and when we made eye contact you could see that he was eager for me to say something. It also seems to be a huge identifiable factor for these people. I feel like a lot of them identify with Trump more than almost anything else.

Really truly sad.

 

[gry60]

Something, something, something, both parties.

Rabble, rabble, rabble, the Clinton's never helped black people doe.

Squawk, squawk, squawk, voting doesn't matter.

White Supremacists Everywhere: Thanks for making it so easy.

This dude Maximus said yesterday that America hasn't changed at all. I'm sure he watched "Hidden Colors" and I wonder if he realizes that we went from Black mathematicians stuck in NASA basements to this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_astronauts

 

[ksteezy]

I remember seeing some dude at the Gym with a MAGA hat working out with two of his buddies....I just shook my head...what else can you do, this is a free country and if fools wanna walk around with the new age kkk hood on their head, then it is what it is, that hat is nothing more than a symbol of white privileged, supremacy, inferiority, etc

 

[IATT]

 

[blastercombo]

I remember seeing some dude at the Gym with a MAGA hat working out with two of his buddies....I just shook my head...what else can you do, this is a free country and if fools wanna walk around with the new age kkk hood on their head, then it is what it is, that hat is nothing more than a symbol of white privileged, supremacy, inferiority, etc

Feel the same way when I see bums with yeezy gear on too now.

 

[MalcolmNewton]

I remember seeing some dude at the Gym with a MAGA hat working out with two of his buddies....I just shook my head...what else can you do, this is a free country and if fools wanna walk around with the new age kkk hood on their head, then it is what it is, that hat is nothing more than a symbol of white privileged, supremacy, inferiority, etc

I saw an old white dude with one over the weekend. I just look at it as a modern-day dunce cap. Go sit in the corner away from the adults.

 

[getback]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/sav...rest-rates-to-jump/ar-AAxgPHJ?ocid=spartandhp

America's budget deficit and unemployment rate are heading in opposite directions — something that's never happened during post World War II peacetime and could cause a significant jump in interest rates.

Goldman Sachs projects, for instance, that the 10-year Treasury note could be yielding 3.6 percent next year.

To meet the growing debt load, the U.S. will have to issue more bonds at a time when the Federal Reserve is no longer a player in the market.

More supply and fewer buyers will mean the government will have to pay investors more to buy U.S. debt. And that will mean higher interest rates.

Goldman specifically projects the benchmark U.S. Treasury note will be yielding 3.6 percent by the end of 2019, up from a shade below 3 percent where it's trading now and at a point where it could start applying pressure to economic growth.

 

[RustyShackleford]

But, but, but the coffers were supposed to be booming?

The Bigot said the cuts would pay for themselves.

 

[noskey]

But, but, but the coffers were supposed to be booming?

The Bigot said the cuts would pay for themselves.

Gotta spend money to make money, Rookie. Catch up b.

 

[IATT]

 

[aepps20]

This dude Maximus said yesterday that America hasn't changed at all. I'm sure he watched "Hidden Colors" and I wonder if he realizes that we went from Black mathematicians stuck in NASA basements to this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_astronauts

America has made significant progress on race relations. Things were heading in the RIGHT direction then we had the OBUMMER Years. You can only call real Americans racist enough times before they become racist which is what happened. As an African American, I proudly voted for our PRESIDENT ELECT DONALD JOHN TRUMP because I felt like he could make America what it used to be pre Obummer. #MAGA

 

[IATT]

 

[Belgium]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-at-epa/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.64e64f565711
Scott Pruitt requested, received 24/7 security starting on his first day at EPA

Scott Pruitt began receiving round-the-clock security from the moment he stepped foot inside the Environmental Protection Agency in February 2017, at the behest of a Trump administration political appointee, according to emails obtained by The Washington Post.

The EPA’s inspector general said in a letter Monday that Pruitt got extensive protection from the very start of his tenure but did not clarify who requested it. The separate series of emails obtained by The Washington Post shows that the decision to provide Pruitt with 24/7 coverage was made by Don Benton, a Republican former Washington state senator who served as the agency’s senior White House adviser in the first weeks of the new administration.

“EPA’s Protective Service Detail began providing 24/7 coverage of the Administrator the first day he arrived,” Inspector General Arthur Elkins wrote in response to inquiries from Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) about what threats prompted Pruitt’s nonstop security, which has cost in excess of $3 million. “The decision was made by the Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training after being informed that Mr. Pruitt requested 24/7 protection once he was confirmed as Administrator.”

The inspector general’s office, which investigates threats made against any EPA employee, “played no role in this decision,” Elkins added.

In a Feb. 12, 2017, email to several EPA security officials, Benton framed the decision as a precautionary measure given the controversy sure to ensue from some of the president’s early policy decisions. “I have requested 24-7 protection for the new administrator for the first week at least and then evaluate from there,” Benton wrote.

“There will be several Executive Orders signed when [Pruitt] is sworn in that will likely stir the hornets nest and with the security issue in the Atlanta office last week as well as the lady who threatened former administrator [Gina] McCarthy not showing up for court and at large in DC it is best to be on the safe side,” he continued.

EPA officials discussed the increased costs and strain on the agency’s criminal-investigations division that would stem from such a move. The acting special agent in charge, Eric Weese, wrote colleagues that nonstop protection would entail doubling the number of agents on Pruitt’s security detail to 16.

Weese predicted this would be “a major disruption” to the division’s assets in the Mid-Atlantic region, “but there will be no other way to pull this off.”

Agency spokesman Jahan Wilcox said in a statement Monday that, “as the report says, EPA’s Office of Inspector General does not determine security assessments. EPA’s Protective Service Detail handles security decisions and this particular decision was made before Administrator Pruitt arrived at EPA.”

Some Cabinet members routinely receive heightened security as part of their jobs, including the secretaries of defense, state and homeland security. FBI agents accompany the attorney general around the clock. But for other Cabinet posts, the level of protection varies, based on circumstances. Early in the Trump administration, for example, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos received a full protective detail, at an estimated initial cost of $1 million a month.

At the EPA, prior administrators have not typically received 24/7 protection. Pruitt’s immediate predecessor, McCarthy, typically had a security detail that accompanied her to work each day, to meetings and to events and dropped her off at home each night. The detail also traveled with her on official business. But McCarthy’s detail was roughly a third of the size of the one that guards Pruitt.

“While I did get threats, I did not feel like I was particularly under threat,” McCarthy said in a recent interview. She said she declined the agents’ proposal that she expand her protection. “I did what I thought was the minimum.”

Agency officials, including Pruitt, have said repeatedly that he has experienced far more threats than previous administrators. And Pruitt has maintained that he left decisions about the size and intensity of his security detail, as well as related decisions such as traveling first class for safety, to Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, the special agent in charge who took over after Weese was reassigned.

Perrotta, who has been under scrutiny for the expenditures related to Pruitt’s security and travel, retired from the agency late last month.

Grilled at a hearing on Capitol Hill last month about the need for such extensive security, Pruitt read directly from a list of alleged threats the inspector general had compiled last summer, including one posted on social media that read: “Pruitt, I’m gonna find you and put a bullet between your eyes. Don’t think I’m joking. I’m planning this.”

The 14 incidents collected by the inspector general to that point also included a “potentially threatening postcard” from a person who “expressed regret and apologized” when confronted by investigators, as well as a letter from a prison inmate that authorities concluded “did not reveal any overt threatening language.”

There were no confirmed threat cases open the day Pruitt took office, according to an individual with direct knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

Elkins made clear in his letter Monday that his office “has never conducted a ‘threat assessment’ ” for Pruitt — a broader, more formal evaluation used to help determine what level and type of protection is warranted for an official.

“It includes all available information, including the results of threat investigations, but also other factors, such as notoriety, history of threats or violence directed against the person or event, other dangers or potentials dangers that may be associated with the person or event, and location,” Elkins wrote, adding, “The OIG is not a decision-maker for the EPA.”

Elkins said that the EPA’s front office asked the inspector general to undertake such an assessment in February 2017 but that he “declined and informed EPA management that it is not the role of the OIG to provide a threat assessment.” Later, he wrote, his office provided the list of threats it had investigated to Pruitt’s protective service detail, which was in the process of preparing its own threat assessment.

Perrotta wrote a brief memo May 1, 2017, requesting approval for Pruitt to begin flying first and business class whenever possible, based on security concerns. Perrotta said that Pruitt was being recognized more often in public and that those guarding him had noticed “at times lashing out from passengers which occurs while the Administrator is seated in coach with [his personal security detail] not easily accessible to him due to uncontrolled full flights.”

As a result, Perrotta wanted a way to better control the environment around the EPA chief. “We believe that the continued use of coach seats for the Administrator would endanger his life,” he said. Earlier this year, after a public outcry over the cost of his travels, Pruitt said he instructed his detail to again seat him in coach class whenever feasible.

Whitehouse and Carper, who requested the information that Elkins ultimately provided Monday, said in a statement that Pruitt’s decision to request full-time security from the moment he took over at the EPA raises questions about his previous claims.

“A threat to a federal employee’s personal security is extremely serious, but so is using security as pretext for special treatment on the public dime,” the senators said. “This letter raises troubling questions about whether Administrator Pruitt told the truth during his testimony before the House. Now more than ever, Mr. Pruitt should come clean about his spending of taxpayer dollars on all manner of extravagances, and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle should demand he do so.”

This is the grand memo that Perrotta used to justify Pruitt's first-class travel for the record

 

[Nike Jordan]

I voted in the PA primary today.

 

[IATT]

 

[Belgium]

A good day for torture. I suppose if there's any upside it's that she at least seems to be a very competent nominee for the job with support within the agency, rather than an entirely unqualified political appointee.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018...pport-for-confirmation-as-cia-director-589038
Haspel secures enough Senate support for confirmation as CIA director
Gina Haspel has locked in the necessary support to win confirmation as President Donald Trump's CIA director, as two critical undecided Democrats — Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota — announced Tuesday that they would support her nomination.

Haspel has now won votes from four Democratic senators, allowing her to overcome any potential remaining opposition from either side of the aisle.

 

[Belgium]

Statement from the Qatari investor's spokesman:
"Mr. Al-Rumaihi was at Trump Tower on December 12, 2016. He was there in his then role as head of Qatar Investments, an internal division of QIA, to accompany the Qatari delegation that was meeting with Trump transition officials on that date," said a spokesperson for Sport Trinity, a company that Al-Rumaihi co-owns. "He did not participate in any meetings with Michael Flynn, and his involvement in the meetings on that date was limited."