***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[trueprada]

Trevor Noah takes a closer look at the beach brawl between India and China’s armies

https://t.co/AY3GSC3gkH

 

[AEA18]

Posted this in the alt-white rally thread. Orange Cult members on CNN

 

[AZwildcats]

 

[Nike Jordan]

I don't need to watch the video to know what the Bigot's supporters think. I don't even care about them.

 

[iamdef]

I actually don't think Trump will pardon the sheriff. Even he can't be that stupid.

We gon save this, and when he does it we'll check for an update on your opinion on how stupid he is

 

[Rootin4EverybodyBlack]

The man got on TV after a domestic terrorist attack that killed a lily white woman and tried to pull a "I don't know all the facts" and then said "both sides are at fault" all to appeal to his Klan member base.

Don't question his stupidity.

 

[whywesteppin]

arguing that Mercer's company (which helped fund trump's campaign) is likely laundering money for Putin.

hard to prove but it's probably true.

 

[AEA18]

This investigation is going to bring down a bunch of Putin's peeps

 

[wavycrocket]

Trump Supporters and Republicans try to pass off 2016 Cleveland Cavs Championship parade picture as large crowd size for Trump Rally last night


http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2017/08/trump_supporters_faked_out_by.html

 

[gry60]

www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/post-politics/wp/2017/08/23/as-trump-ranted-and-rambled-in-phoenix-his-crowd-slowly-thinned/

Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., led everyone in singing a few lines of “How Great Thou Art.”

Ma'am, get a ******* clue...

The president then tried to connect this lengthy self-examination to his supporters. Meanwhile, a growing number of them were calling it a night and heading to the exits.

Haha.

arguing that Mercer's company (which helped fund trump's campaign) is likely laundering money for Putin.

hard to prove but it's probably true.

Please be true...

 

[dreamer23]

 

[iamdef]

Looks like most people just wandered in

 

[Rootin4EverybodyBlack]

That feeling when you can't draw a bigger crowd than the past three presidents.

 

[hipstermike]

"Getting kicked off Facebook or YouTube or PayPal or whatever, this is effectively losing the ability to speak," Spencer says. "It is actually a more powerful form of censorship than were a government to censor."

Companies like Google and Facebook are not covered by the First Amendment, which applies only to the federal government. But Spencer feels these companies are so large that the government needs to step in — just as it did with broadcasting. Spencer says otherwise, we won't have freedom of speech.

"These are the free speech platforms in the 21st century," he says. "So if we're going to regulate all of these 20th century ways of expressing ourselves, then why are we so loath to regulate the 21st century ones, which are much more relevant and much more vital?"​

Racists getting upset when companies take action and they want government intervention? Don't they want less government and more market forces to play?

 

[trueprada]

 

[dreamer23]

just checked dudes twitter and found this diamond..

 

[hipstermike]

Just subscribed to Washington Post to support journalism.

Might subscribe to LA times also.

 

[gry60]

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/28/carl-icahns-failed-raid-on-washington

the full article.

it's long.

Interesting article. It's amazing how a billionaire multibillionaire can still try to pass himself off as a "small business owner" or "the little guy."

In May, after the revelations about the rin trading by CVR, the senators wrote to the heads of the S.E.C., the E.P.A., and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, calling on them to investigate. But it could not have escaped the senators’ attention that two recipients of their letter—Jay Clayton and Scott Pruitt—had met with Icahn in the context of securing their jobs. The Senate Democrats cannot issue subpoenas to agencies unless they get the Republican majority to sign on—an unlikely outcome.

...unless some finally decide to show up for the 2018 midterms and the 2020 elections.

The White House official who would, in theory, police Icahn’s status is Stefan Passantino, the deputy counsel to the President for compliance and ethics. Passantino was responsible for “counselling” Kellyanne Conway, the Presidential adviser, after she sparked an outcry by promoting Ivanka Trump’s apparel line during a Fox News interview. In the view of Trump Administration officials, Passantino laid to rest the Icahn controversy with his February declaration that Icahn was “simply a private citizen.” Kelly Love, the White House spokeswoman, said, “Mr. Icahn does not have a position with the Administration, nor a policymaking role.”

It is ironic for Passantino to rule on the controversy surrounding Icahn’s conflicts of interest—because Passantino has a conflict of his own. On June 28th, Walter Shaub, the head of the Office of Government Ethics, wrote a letter pointing out that Passantino, in his mandatory disclosures as a full-time White House employee, noted that before joining the Administration he had been a corporate lawyer. He listed the clients for whom he had done work in the two years prior to joining the government. One of them was Icahn. At the time that Passantino was initially queried about the propriety of Icahn’s position, he made no mention of this relationship.

Two weeks after Shaub sent his letter, he resigned, saying that he could no longer meaningfully perform the function for which the Office of Government Ethics was designed. Shaub warned that the United States was facing a “historic ethics crisis.” The White House released a statement lashing out at Shaub, dismissing his concerns as “grandstanding.”

For all of President Trump’s fulminations about the danger of leaks, his White House has a bizarre habit of authorizing spokespeople to talk with the press on the condition that their names not be mentioned. When I asked the White House for an interview with Passantino, to discuss how he had vetted Icahn’s position, a spokeswoman replied that Passantino had been “recused on any matters related to Carl Icahn,” because Icahn was a former client. This was the first I had heard of any recusal, and I asked when it had happened. On the first day of the Administration, the spokeswoman replied.

If the White House spokeswoman was correct, then at the time that Passantino issued the Administration’s judgment that Icahn’s role posed no ethical conflicts he was already recused from offering legal advice on precisely that question. “That’s not how recusal works,” Shaub told me. “Recusing yourself means not delivering the White House’s legal theories about whether Icahn is an employee.” The spokeswoman maintained that, when Passantino made his declaration, he wasn’t making a legal judgment, but “merely reiterating a fact.” Richard Painter, who used to hold Passantino’s job, told me that the White House’s repeated assertion that Icahn is simply a private citizen is “bogus,” adding, “The ethics shop in this White House is not very good.”

Also love that they addressed exactly why that kind of behavior within the administration is/should be worrisome

Jeff Hauser, who runs the Revolving Door Project, a nonprofit focussed on government corruption, told me that Icahn’s relationship with Trump is a particularly bald example of a kind of clientalist politics that has been more typical, historically, of banana republics, but which is on the rise in the United States. “Once there is an acquiescence that this sort of corruption is acceptable, then you just see the demise of representative government,” Hauser said. “We will essentially become a feudal state, with people creating their own fiefdoms and extracting rents from the public.”

On August 14th, I asked the White House to confirm that Icahn was still a special adviser to the President. The spokeswoman e-mailed me back: “Icahn is NOT ‘a special adviser to the president for regulatory reform.’ ” This was certainly news. In my conversations with Icahn and his lawyer, I had not developed any impression that his status had changed. Was the Administration cutting him loose?

I wrote back to the spokeswoman, asking when Icahn had been let go. She replied, “There was no ‘effective’ end date, because there was never a formal appointment or title after January 20.” This was transparently false; Icahn had been named a special adviser to “the President,” not to “the President-elect.” On March 1st, Icahn’s company told the S.E.C. that he was “currently” a Trump adviser. And why had the White House lawyer, Stefan Passantino, recused himself on January 20th from “any matters related to Carl Icahn” if, as of that very day, Icahn had no role in the Administration?

 

[harlemtothebronx]

just checked dudes twitter and found this diamond..

How ironic after Trump spent all that time last night calling the news fake and claiming networks were cutting away cause he was keeping it too real.

 

[iamdef]

Just subscribed to Washington Post to support journalism.

Might subscribe to LA times also.

Trump's plan of reverse psychology is working we see

 

[everysingletime]

I've been subscribed to nytimes

Would subscribe to WaPo too but apparently you don't need to in order to read the articles. You would need to subscribe in order to participate in the comments section though

 

[Belgium]

I've been subscribed to nytimes

Would subscribe to WaPo too but apparently you don't need to in order to read the articles. You would need to subscribe in order to participate in the comments section though

Yeah WaPo's paywall is easily avoidable. Unlike Nytimes' paywall, whenever you've reached your monthly article limit on WaPo you can still browse the site and read articles and prevent the paywall from stopping you. When you open an article, the article loads first instead of the paywall straight away. There's a small bit of a delay there. You can therefore time clicking the stop loading page button on your browser so the article is loaded but the paywall is prevented from loading. That's how you can read as much as you want on WaPo without a subscription.

 

[aepps20]

The ECHO CHAMBER is in full effect I see. Dapper Don and Barson shut Arizona down last night. Don let the COAL FLOW while Barson let the YAPPA sing on Libbie conjecture and innuendo. Haven't seen a one two punch like that since MJ and Pippen. AMAZING.

 

[dreamer23]

I actually don't think Trump will pardon the sheriff. Even he can't be that stupid.

 

[rillo561]

He definitely eluded to it yesterday during his rally. Not surprised.