What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[grumbler]

Well the Hatch Act is a law too.  It prohibits using public property for partisan political purposes.  Yet we still had this "because TRUMP"

You are aware that the Hatch Act specifically excludes the President and Vice President and all members of the Executive Office of the President, right? 

We absolutely have seen people inside the US Government refuse to break the law on behalf of Trump.  But we've seen others who have not.

Who have we seen actually agree to break the law "because TRUMP?" 

[grumbler]

Also we've generally seen a lack of consequences for that. From what I remember of the poll here, but also just what I see online, it feels like it's unlikely that there'll be prosecutions after Trump leaves office.

I think that that depends on what comes out after the turnover, and what people do in the meantime.  I could absolutely see prosecutions (and at a minimum, terminations) for people who volate the federal records Act in an attempt to hide Trump misdeeds or sabotage the turnover.

[grumbler]

I wonder how much of this is a sort of consequence of the very limited consequences for torture by the Bush administration

I think it all very much has to do with the footloose and fancy-free way the Bush Administration treated its constitutional limits, including engaging in legal cases that it knew it would lose, just to allow for a few more months of illegal behavior, did enormous damage because it had no consequences.  The Shrubbery managed to indefinitely delay final rulings on both his claim to the power to declare Constitution-free zones, where the US President was an absolute dictator subject to no legislative or judicial oversight, and his claim that the POTUS could revoke the citizenship of US citizens at will.  Insofar as I know, those issues have never been laid to rest. 

The difference between the Shrubbery and the Trumpeters is that the Shrubbery had some sense of shame.

[Sheilbh]

Lawyers representing the US in the Assange extradition trial have accepted the claim that Assange was offered a presidential pardon on the condition that he would help cover up Russia's involvement in hacking emails from the DNC. The offer was made by Rohrabacher so query if Trump actually made the offer.

[Syt]

Err ....



(That Wiki snippet is part of the tweet in case you wonder)

[Valmy]

Oh good another tweet comparing us to Hitler.

[grumbler]

Oh good another tweet comparing us to Hitler.

yes, because we all know that Hitler was so evil that he was actually in charge of both the fascist movement and the Antifascist movement.  I expect to learn any day now from the conservatards that he was also in charge of the pacifist and warmonger movements.

Only Evil Burt is more evil than Hitler.

[Razgovory]

Jesus Christ, how the fuck can someone be that stupid?

[viper37]

Jesus Christ, how the fuck can someone be that stupid?

Is he a real person or some troll bot?

[viper37]

Oh good another tweet comparing us to Hitler.

I think Hitler was less scary than Biden

[Valmy]

Jesus Christ, how the fuck can someone be that stupid?

Is he a real person or some troll bot?

His pic looks like a Congressman with that politician American flag pic but I think he is some business guy.

[Syt]

[Habbaku]

The blonde on the right is really cute.

[PDH]

The blonde on the right is really cute.

Yeah, he is kinda sexy.

[Syt]

Trump administration rapidly deploys relief funds to Hurricane stricken Puerto Rico.

https://apnews.com/02c9eba973414d44f2f24cc06a2871da

Puerto Rico getting funds for power grid 3 years after Maria

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration announced Friday that it would release nearly $13 billion in aid to Puerto Rico to help the island rebuild its electrical grid and repair schools from the devastation of Hurricane Maria three years earlier amid criticism that the assistance was overdue and being released now only for political purposes.

The grant comes as President Donald Trump, who has balked at providing assistance to the island territory, and former Vice President Joe Biden court voters in Florida, home to a large population of people from Puerto Rico — including many who fled Hurricane Maria. Florida is a critical swing state in the Nov. 3 election.

Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez thanked Trump and the government for the grant, among the largest ever awarded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for disaster relief. "Working as a team yields results," she said in one of a series of tweets about the funds.

Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez, a New York Democrat, said the timing was notable, three years after the storm knocked out the territory's problem-plagued electrical grid and caused the longest blackout in U.S. history.

"The Trump Administration delayed, dragged its feet and resisted allocating these badly needed funds," said Velázquez, who was born in Puerto Rico. "Now, forty-six days before the election, the administration has finally seen fit to release these funds."

Trump in the past has opposed providing additional aid to Puerto Rico, arguing it received too much already and expressing concern that the money would be wasted or misspent.

In the aftermath of the storm, he publicly feuded with the mayor of San Juan over her criticism of his administration's response to the storm. Trump irritated many by tossing rolls of paper towels into a crowd during a visit to an island church. Democrats earlier this year posted an image of the scene on a billboard in Kissimmee, a heavily Puerto Rican city in central Florida.

Hurricane Maria slammed into the island in September 2017 with winds of 155 mph, causing an estimated $100 billion in damage and killing nearly 3,000 people, according to the official death toll that Trump said was exaggerated to make him look bad.

Even now, thousands of homes are still damaged.

Power wasn't restored island-wide until nearly 11 months after the storm. The system remains vulnerable, with outages affecting tens of thousands of people on a regular basis.

"After the storms utterly destroyed the grid, it created an opportunity to rebuild a cleaner, cheaper and more resilient energy system, but the Trump administration dithered and delayed and refused to deliver timely disaster aid for the people of Puerto Rico," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader.

The White House said $9.6 billion of the new funding is intended to help the Puerto Rico Electrical Power Authority repair and replace thousands of miles of transmission and distribution lines, electrical substations, power generation systems, office buildings, and make other grid improvements.

It said $2 billion would be for the Puerto Rico Department of Education to repair schools across the island.

With this latest grant, the White House said the government has allocated about $26 billion for the island's recovery from Hurricane Maria. Congress has approved about $43 billion.

In October, the island's government announced a 10-year plan to modernize and strengthen the power grid at a projected cost of around $20 billion.