Stories Tagged 'intelligence'
“And on the 132nd day, just after midnight, President Trump had at last delivered the nation to something approaching unity — in bewilderment, if nothing else. The state of our union was … covfefe. The trouble began, as it so often does, on Twitter, in the early minutes of Wednesday morning. Mr. Trump had something to say. Kind of. “Despite the constant negative press covfefe,” the tweet began, at 12:06 a.m., from @realDonaldTrump, the irrepressible internal monologue of his presidency. And that was that. A minute passed. Then another. Then five. Surely he would delete the message. Ten. Twenty. It was nearly 12:30 a.m. Forty minutes. An hour. The questions mounted.”
“Trump, unlike most politicians and, frankly, most people, will nonchalantly argue two logically inconsistent points at the same time. On the campaign trail, he mastered the art of vague assurance that he stood for whatever his audience stood for, and, in office, that skill doesn’t seem to have faded. If it is best that people think a leak was made up by the media — like The Washington Post’s report that Jared Kushner asked Russia to help set up a secure communication system with the Trump team — then Trump will argue that the media made it up. (We didn’t.) If the leak is incidental to him or if he’d like to put the heat on someone else — if, say, someone in law enforcement leaks photos of a terrorist attack in the U.K. — he’ll argue that the leakers need to be caught.”
“Recounting his decision to dismiss Comey, Trump told NBC News, “In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.’””
"Hey Trump, whatcha thinking about?" "Oh, just Russia."
“Naturally, the media followed. And after the TV segments were done, Spicer literally hid with his staff behind a tall hedge trying to decide what to do. (Oh, to have been a spider in that hedge.) “After Spicer spent several minutes hidden in the bushes behind these sets,” as a major American newspaper writes of a senior White House official, he emerged, told reporters to turn their lights and cameras off, and answered questions in the dark, between two bushes, for about 10 minutes.”
“The bill would make deep and sweeping changes to the American health care system. Broadly, the bill loosens Obamacare’s rules on what insurance companies must offer in their plans, opening the door for plans that are cheaper but offer weaker coverage. Most controversially, the American Health Care Act allows insurance companies to charge people with pre-existing conditions higher premiums than healthy people in states that request waivers to do so. The bill passed narrowly, 217-213, Thursday afternoon and now goes to the Senate, where 51 members will need to pass it before Donald Trump can sign the bill into law. Many provisions, such as stripping federal funding for Planned Parenthood, will become major battles when the Senate gets its hands on the bill. Further changes are all but guaranteed.”
“The tensions have escalated for weeks, prompting a recent meeting among Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and other administration officials, according to two sources familiar with the meeting. Now, some of the advisers are being reassigned or simply eased out, the sources said, even though many of them had expected to be central players at their agencies for the long haul. The tumult underscores the growing pains that are still being felt throughout Trump’s government, more than 100 days into his term.”
““People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?” In fact, of course, many, many people do ask that question. (One might imagine that Trump, as a creature of Twitter, might be aware of the endless debates about the war in that platform.) What’s more, it is a question that has been definitively answered. The Civil War was fought over slavery, and the insistence of Southern states that they be allowed to keep it.”
“For Trump — a reality TV star who parlayed his blustery-yet-knowing on-air persona into a winning political brand — television is often the guiding force of his day, both weapon and scalpel, megaphone and news feed. And the president’s obsession with the tube — as a governing tool, a metric for staff evaluation, and a two-way conduit with lawmakers and aides — has upended the traditional rhythms of the White House, influencing many spheres, including policy, his burgeoning relationship with Congress, and whether he taps out a late-night or early-morning tweet.”
“The result is the sort of thing that would comical if it didn’t involve nuclear brinkmanship. The announcement of the Vinson’s movement jacked up the tension between Washington and Pyongyang, which called the travel “reckless” and thundered, in a statement to CNN, “We will make the U.S. fully accountable for the catastrophic consequences that may be brought about by its high-handed and outrageous acts.” Had the North Korean government, unsure how to interpret Trump’s tough rhetoric, actually started a hot war, the Vinson would have been 3,500 miles away, rather than ready to act.”
“That sort of alarm is just the thing some Mexicans would now like to provoke. What Mexican analysts have called the “China card”—a threat to align with America’s greatest competitor—is an extreme retaliatory option. Former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda told me he considers it an implausible expression of “machismo.” Unfortunately, Trump has elevated machismo to foreign-policy doctrine, making it far more likely that other countries will embrace the same ethos in response. And while a tighter Chinese–Mexican relationship would fly in the face of recent economic history, Trump may have already set it in motion.”
Mexico knows how to play Twighlight Struggle, apparently.
“A new poll from Gallup released early Monday finds that a majority of Americans no longer view Trump as keeping his promises, with poll numbers on that question falling from 62 percent in February to 45 percent in early April, a stunning tumble of 17 percentage points. The drop was seen across every demographic group: women, men, millennials, baby boomers and people with political leanings of all kinds. While numbers sank the furthest among respondents who identified as a Democrat or liberal, independents who said they thought Trump kept his promises fell from 59 percent to 43 percent; even among Republicans, the numbers fell, from 92 percent to 81 percent.”
“But experts say ballistic missiles tests the North launched in recent months timed to meetings between President Donald Trump and the leaders of China and Japan, along with its propensity for grandiose promises of war, follow “seasonal” patterns. [...] This time, however, the Trump administration has shifted tack, threatening to upend years of diplomatic policy against the North that are often centered around economic sanctions and a hope that the hermit country’s prime ally, China, will keep its neighbor in check.”
The key take away appears to be that North Korea's actions here are rather typical, the kind of things Trump should be prepared for. This year this typical event is starting to spiral out of control, and the difference is Trump. A level-headed leader can respond to North Korea's provocations reasonably, but Trump seems determined to trade rhetoric for rhetoric until he runs out of rhetoric and gets everyone killed.
“The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.”
“This is Jared. Jared’s never been to war before. But his father-in-law, a very busy man, sent Jared to the war to see how it’s going!”
Are we sure Kushner isn't actually a Bluth? He looks like GOB and I could imagine him saying “These are my awards, Father. From Army. The seal is for marksmanship, and the gorilla is for sand racing. Now if you'll excuse me, they're putting me in something called Hero Squad.”
“In a sense, there was nothing surprising about the surprise trip to Iraq that Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, made this week. It can’t come as a shock, at this point, that anyone in the Trump Administration thought it was a good idea to send a neophyte to a war zone, or to bypass normal diplomatic procedures, or to turn a fight in which American troops are at risk and Iraqi civilians are being killed by errant air strikes into a venue for familial posturing. The trip wasn’t even technically a surprise, since White House officials, in a flouting of security procedures, confirmed the visit before Kushner had landed in Baghdad. The Trump team, with its acute sense of victimhood, surely ought to have realized that a member of the President’s immediate family would be a tempting target in a war zone; perhaps it figured that the American and Iraqi militaries would dispatch so many troops to guard him that there was nothing to fear, for Kushner, at least. Whether announcing his imminent arrival might have put those ordinary soldiers at even more risk does not seem to have occurred to the White House. Indeed, the only real puzzle of the Kushner trip is which particular Trumpian political vice it best illustrates: deluded self-aggrandizement or a callous indifference to other people’s lives; conflicts of interest or a lack of any interest in the consequences of the use of power.”
“Sebastian Gorka, the senior adviser to Donald Trump who calls himself a terrorism expert but who isn’t viewed that way by actual terrorism experts, has multiple ties to anti-Semitic groups from his parents’ native Hungary. For example, in the past he has been seen and photographed wearing the uniform and medal of the Vitézi Rend, a far-right group of Nazi collaborators and sympathizers, and he has also signed his name with an initial associated with sworn members of the organization. Furthermore, members of the Rend told The Forward that he swore an oath of loyalty to it, though Gorka didn’t respond to a Forward request to comment on that front. Gorka has cycled through various explanations for his ties to these groups, sometimes referencing tributes to his father or to the victims of communism (a movement which the Vitézi Rend fought against).”
“In a ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson converted the temporary restraining order he issued into a preliminary injunction. He did not alter his earlier instruction that the federal government be barred from implementing a ban on issuance of visas to citizens of six majority-Muslim countries and from carrying out a plan to suspend refugee admissions worldwide.”
“Riffing during a fundraising dinner before the National Republican Congressional Committee, President Donald Trump asked if anyone knew Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. “Great president. Most people don't even know he was a Republican," Trump said earlier this month. "Does anyone know? Lot of people don't know that.” The president’s statement was met with ridicule — and this wasn’t the first time. From implying famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass was still alive to praising both Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, two bitter rivals, within a week, presidential historians say Trump is showing he lacks a solid grasp on history.”
I guess it’s hard to keep a grip on something as big as history with such small hands.
“On the other hand, kids who seek a more substantial expression through body art do tend to get involved in drugs. The most likely connection between body art and drug use involves rebellion, or the subculture within what we can generalize and call the counterculture. The “Goth” or “punk” movements are specific counterculture groups. In both groups, the kids often dress in black, wear heavy white makeup, paint their hair bright colors and use fairly intense body art and piercings. Goths usually smoke cigarettes and many practice an odd sort of devil worship, although kids in the “punk” culture may not have any interest in these non-mainstream beliefs. Not all Goths are drug addicts, but a high percentage experiment with all types of drugs, including hallucinogens.”
“I inherited a mess in the Middle East, and a mess with North Korea, I inherited a mess with jobs, despite the statistics, you know, my statistics are even better, but they are not the real statistics because you have millions of people that can’t get a job, ok. And I inherited a mess on trade. I mean we have many, you can go up and down the ladder. But that’s the story. Hey look, in the mean time, I guess, I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president, and you’re not. You know. Say hello to everybody OK?”
“Donald Trump was supposed to travel to Kentucky on Saturday to defend the Republican health care plan, which some have begun calling “Trumpcare,” but the president canceled without explanation. (Trump instead went golfing for the ninth time since Inauguration Day.) [...] Even by 2017 standards, this is bizarre. To the extent that reality still matters, Kentucky is actually a textbook example of the Affordable Care Act succeeding. As regular readers know, under Gov. Steve Beshear’s (D) leadership, the state’s success story has served as a national model, watching its uninsured rate drop from 20.4% to just 7.5%. In terms of state-by-state improvement, the Bluegrass State is tied for first as the greatest percentage improvement in the nation.”
“Mr. Trump, advisers said, was in high spirits after he fired off the posts. But by midafternoon, after returning from golf, he appeared to realize he had gone too far, although he still believed Mr. Obama had wiretapped him, according to two people in Mr. Trump’s orbit. He sounded defiant in conversations at Mar-a-Lago with his friend Christopher Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax Media, Mr. Ruddy said. In other conversations that afternoon, the president sounded uncertain of the procedure for obtaining a warrant for secret wiretaps on an American citizen. Mr. Trump also canvassed some aides and associates about whether an investigator, even one outside the government, could substantiate his charge. People close to Mr. Trump had seen the pattern before. The episode echoed repeated instances in the 2016 presidential campaign.”
“Look beyond the bill’s quasi-mandate and tax credits, and the Obamacare replacement bill is a $600 billion tax cut, with the benefits going almost entirely to the wealthy. To pay for its spending, Obamacare included several taxes on couples making more than $250,000, like a 3.8 percent surtax on investment income and a 0.9 percent surtax on wages. Last year, those levies brought in about $27 billion, according to Wall Street Journal analysis of IRS data. Repealing them would cost about $275 billion over the next decade; which is to say, it would transfer $275 billion from public-health spending to the richest 1 or 2 percent. Other provisions, like repealing the limit of flexible spending accounts and expanding health savings accounts, will also disproportionately benefit the rich.”
“In either context, the president’s remarks alleging his phones were “tapped” are simply preposterous and reflect his complete ignorance of how the various surveillance authorities retained by the government over which he now presides actually work. The president cannot, on his own, authorize surveillance of a U.S. citizen. Whether for domestic criminal purposes or foreign intelligence purposes, a court order is required, either through a standard Article III court or the FISC. There is no indication in any of the reporting that a FISA warrant was issued targeting Trump specifically. Even if collected records encompassed by the FISA warrant—whether the broad Heat Street claim or the more limited BBC/McClatchy claim—included phones calls, emails and/or financial records identifying Trump by name, the minimization procedures imposed by the FISC would have required, absent specific exceptions, that his name be deleted or “masked.” The investigators and analysts would not be aware of the fact that it was the president’s calls, emails or financial records they were reviewing, at least not without external information independent of the records themselves.”
“The mosque fires come amid increased fear about hate crimes against minority religious groups. In recent weeks, scores of bomb threats were called into Jewish community centers and schools around the country and graveyards in Jewish cemeteries in three states were vandalized. On Sunday, somebody threw a rock through a window of the Masjid Abu Bakr mosque in Denver. In Redmond, Washington, vandals destroyed the Muslim Association of Puget Sound mosque’s entrance sign on two occasions within two months of the election. In January, a white nationalist fatally shot six people at a mosque in Quebec City, Canada. Last week, a white man shot two Indian men, one fatally, at a Kansas bar after making racial slurs, questioning their immigration status, and shouting, “Get out of my country.””
“Politico editor Carrie Budoff Brown accused the White House of anonymously planting a fake story to smear its reporter.”
“Richard III: Richard demands, “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!”, and gets the best horse, a fabulous horse, believe me, this horse, what is maybe important is, this horse is really big. His promise of a kingdom in exchange is neither literal nor serious, played well in the campaign didn’t it, but now we don’t care.”
““You never know what's exactly happening behind the scenes. You know, you're probably right or possibly right, but you never know,” Trump said in the interview, a clip of which was released Monday night. “No, I think that President Obama is behind it because his people are certainly behind it. And some of the leaks possibly come from that group, which are really serious because they are very bad in terms of national security. But I also understand that is politics. In terms of him being behind things, that's politics. And it will probably continue.””
“President Trump said Monday that “nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated,” as Republicans have been slow to unite around a replacement plan for ObamaCare.”
““We're getting really bad dudes out of this country, and at a rate that nobody's ever seen before,” Trump said Thursday. “And they're the bad ones. And it's a military operation.” He added: “You see what's happening at the border. All of a sudden for the first time, we're getting gang members out. We're getting drug lords out.” A White House spokesperson said Trump did not misspeak by calling deportations a 'military operation,' but clarified the President meant “military” as an “adjective.” “The President was clearly describing the orderly and professional manner in which his executive orders are being implemented, and the administration's emphasis on removing serious criminals here in the US illegally,” the spokesperson said.”
Adjective as in “military operation on US soil” I guess.
“The same day that President Trump called out the media as an “enemy of the American people,” one of the nation’s oldest and most important newspapers retaliated against the president’s continual unhinged bashing of the press. The Washington Post has changed its slogan to “Democracy dies in darkness,” which is both powerful and alliterative.”
“A federal civilian hiring freeze ordered by President Donald Trump has forced at least two Army bases to indefinitely suspend some child care programs.”
““We’re doing a lot of interviews tomorrow — generals, dictators, we have everything,” Trump told the crowd, according to an audiotape of his closed-to-the-press remarks, obtained by POLITICO from a source in the room. “You may wanna come around. It’ll be fun. We’re really working tomorrow. We have meetings every 15, 20 minutes with different people that will form our government.” “We’re going to be interviewing everybody — Treasury, we’re going to be interviewing secretary of state,” he continued. “We have everybody coming in — if you want to come around, it’s going to be unbelievable … so you might want to come along.””
“The follow-up question was something he’d ever been asked before. “‘I’ve got a problem, I’m trying to write a computer program, can you help me?’” Thornton said he was so surprised he didn’t know what to think. “I was a little bit taken aback, because I thought I was going to get straight in. “He started to read off his computer, and I got the feeling he was trying to trick me. I just wanted to get into the US, so I said: ‘Of course’.” He said the officer appeared to be mid to senior level, and there’s no chance the conversation would have been overheard by anyone else in line. For the next few minutes, he was forced to prove his worth — even given a pen and paper to record his answers. “He administered a literal computer science test. It wasn’t a savant-level one like you hear of at Google, but it was definitely a test. The vibe I got was weird. He asked me a question, then asked me a follow-up question to prove I wasn’t lying.””
I've worked for 8 years as an engineer in tech and this floors me. The number of talented people who can't implement FizzBuzz on a whiteboard in an interview is large; I can't imagine how many would bomb it when put on the spot by an immigration officer.
“Because the executive order is unlawful as applied to Petitioners, their continued detention based solely on the executive order violates their Fifth Amendment procedural and substantive due process rights, and is ultra vires the immigration statutes. Further, Petitioners’ continued unlawful detention is part of a widespread pattern applied to many refugees and arriving aliens detained after the issuance of the January 27, 2017 executive order. Therefore, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Petitioners respectfully apply to this Court for a writ of habeas corpus to remedy their unlawful detention by Respondents, and for declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent such harms from recurring.”
“Many of these aliens are criminals who have served time in our Federal, State, and local jails.”