Gonna be fun to hear how Trump supporter Chris Christie, who prosecuted Kushner's Dad, rationalizes his pardon cnn.com/2019/01/30/pol…
The point, the very clear point, is that anyone who testifies against Trump will be punished (see also the officials who testified against him during the impeachment and lost their jobs).
Those who keep quiet or lie to protect Trump are rewarded.
In the last days of the administration, Trump OMB tells agencies to stop doing strategic planning and reporting performance data. Hard to see this as anything other than administrative vandalism. thehill.com/policy/energy-…
Inside baseball: federal legislation (the GPRA Modernization Act) requires agencies perform regular strategic planning and performance reporting. OMB guidance via circular A-11 ensures that they do this, and follow a standard format. Trump's OMB just told agencies not to bother.
This is just sort of bizarre on many levels: a basic job of OMB is to ensure agencies comply with federal statute reporting requirements. This just sort of negates both the statute, and OMB's fundamental role.
Your reminder that Trump's original reason for vetoing this defense spending bill is that it would allow the names of confederate generals to be removed from military bases. He later added the Section 230 stuff, but this is what peak identity politics looks like.
Trump's vetoed defense spending because of a provision that his Secretary of Defense, the military brass, and both parties in Congress supported. Trump even wanted to keep confederate flags on bases. Gotta honor the traitors who fought for slavery. businessinsider.com/trump-furious-…
Every year Rand Paul does a "festivus report" on government waste, including scientific spending, that gets a ton of uncritical press by media who do not investigate the claims.
My request to media: this year, when basic science really came through for us, please don't share it.
I understand the appeal of Rand Paul's Festivus report: the story is ready-made click-bait. Lizards on a treadmill! You can use a Seinfeld image! And its almost the holidays, so hard to reach the people the story is about. It is made for social media news sharing.
This sort of stuff is not new. What Paul is doing is just an update of William Proxmire's Golden Fleece Awards. All too often the studies being attacked sound ridiculous only b/c politicians or media don't bother to contact the scientists they criticize. npr.org/2011/08/23/139…
Horseshit from the horseshoe: Jacobin columnists, Trump and OANN attack the COVID bill for defense and foreign aid spending that are not in the COVID package.
This isn't advanced game theory. Pelosi immediately called Trump's bluff and promised to support the $2000 checks this week. The theory that the only think blocking the $2K checks was Pelosi's unwillingness to fight will be pretty quickly tested.
Of course, the a $2K relief bill will not pass by unanimous consent because many in the President's party oppose it, and he is going to make exactly the same level of effort to lobby for the policy as he did before the COVID bill was passed: exactly zero.
Its a cronyism Christmas miracle! Trump pardons the first two members of Congress to endorse him, who, in an extraordinary coincidence, turned out to be crooks.
Do you love seeing war criminals escape justice, but are getting tired of Eddie Gallagher? You'll love this years model, just in time for the holidays!
The purposes of presidential pardons is rebalance the scales of justice occasionally. Trump has used his pardon power to provide "get out of jail free" cards to his cronies and supporters.
Translation: My factually incorrect statement went viral so I’m not taking it down.
So, Israel was trending on twitter, and a lot of that messaging was centered on the idea that the stimulus bill was providing $600 for Americans but $500M from Israel. Sounds bad, not not accurate.
A good chunk of that traffic was driven by Bragman's original tweet, which, between the combination of the blue check and screenshots of appropriations language looks pretty persuasive. It's at about 15K RTs and another 8K quote tweets right now. So, why is this wrong?