The guy is a massive narcissist who has his name in giant gold block letters on buildings everywhere. The wall is nothing more than a easy ploy to get votes and for him it's just another construction gig he can claim.

Build the wall or re-build Houston. Seems like the next "logical battle".

I don't think reality can escape cynicism or sarcasm at this point.

Maybe he should go to Houston. If he sees sparks flying from any downed wires he should walk up to them to see if they are really live. You never know, those sparks could be fake news.

All the TX legislators that voted against Sandy aid should have to publicly apologize as part of whatever aid package gets passed.

dola

WaPo is reporting that Trump had a pending deal for a tower in Moscow while he was running for President.

Whatever happened to "the law is the law and breaking the law makes you a criminal, and fuck the criminals"?

That only counts for laws he likes.

He is white and shares his delusional view of the world. There is no consistency, just delusion, which should be obvious to anybody subscribed to this forum for more than 6 months.

As much as I agree with the direction your mind goes, I don't think it is right to put conditions on aid given to Americans in trouble.

But yea, any TX legislators who did that are assholes.

I fear to ask this of course (I don't really know), but were there any northeast area legislators who voted against Katrina aid? I can't think of a good political reason for anyone to vote against aid for people caught in situations like these, but our politicians in particular seem wont to further the divide in our country.

I agree that nothing should hold up aid, I just wish there was a price paid by the people that want aid for themselves, but not for others.

On another note, I don't think I've ever seen anything as tacky as the President using disaster photo ops for product placement opportunities.

Really, there is no limit to his ability to be tacky.

It's funny--you could argue that Trump is more skilled at many things than any other President in history. It's just they are ALL terrible things. Tackiness. Spite. Lying. Male Chauvinism. White Pride. And so forth.

Be prepared for some furious tweets

Japan warns North Korea missile headed toward northern Japan

I'm waiting for the US bombing North Korea over this at the peak of the outrage of his impending mishandling of Hurricane Harvey.

So basically we'll attack North Korea because Trump says something stupid praising the size of the storm after being asked about people dying and then announces he's tying relief aid to funding for his wall.

Second Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act to Meet Immediate Needs Arising From the Consequences of Hurricane Katrina, 2005 (2005; 109th Congress H.R. 3673) - GovTrack.us

Passed 97-0 in Senate, 410-11 in the House. All 11 NO votes were Republicans. From the North East, just 1 from NJ (fuck that guy). 2 from Texas - Ron Paul (of course) and Joe Barton, with Joe Barton still in the House (his district is near Dallas).

Edit: That's the one that I could find news articles about. Here's the first (since that's the second): https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bil...hr3645/details

No vote roll call on that one, though.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-...l/3645/actions

That says the bill passed the House by voice vote, and unanimous in the Senate

It seems weird to vote against aid in situations like this. Unless something stupid was tied into the bill that has nothing to do with aid, of course. I don't see much political gain and I see a huge PR loss.

Kinda like voting against babies and puppies.

Scott Garrett and indeed fuck that guy. But he was voted out in 2016. He's Trump's nominee to be the Chairman and President of the Export-Import Bank.

There is no low for this moron (re: pardoning Arpaio):

“In the middle of a hurricane, even though it was a Friday evening, I assumed the ratings would be far higher than they would be normally,” Trump said during a press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö. “You know, the hurricane was just starting.”

Trump laid out a bunch of criminals that Clinton and Obama pardoned. Seems they did a lot worse things then Arpaio.
Did you guys have this outrage then? Or were you just saving it for Trump?

I forget. It's always the fault of Obama or a Clinton.

Pardoning the racist not withstanding, he admitted he purposefully did it when he did it because of ratings. I'm sorry, but I don't believe Obama or a Clinton used a natural disaster affecting millions of Americans to play to core contingent of anti-anything other than white crowd.

Trump comparing Arpaio to people he feels other administrations shouldn't have pardoned and then calling him a Patriot despite the fact that he tried to frame a teenager for his assassination to help him in the polls, failed to investigate hundreds of sexual abuse claims, covered up evidence of sexual abuse, and refused to release the death totals of his concentration camp for people that aren't even necessarily guilty (just awaiting trial) is kind of sending mixed signals.

Every president pardons people that shouldn't be pardoned. It's an abused loophole in our government. However, I can't recall a president pardoning someone so controversial this early in his presidency and then defending the piece of shit.

I understand some love the tough on borders, old west persona guy that portrayed in the media. But Arpaio is a guy responsible for who knows how many innocent people dead, sexual abuse crimes investigated, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars wasted. Blaming the other side for their failures isn't the way you justify pardoning a disgusting human being like this.

What did they do that was worse than what Arpaio did? (I honestly don't know off the top of my head right now, that's why I'm asking.)

In any case, Arpaio is a scumbag and should have never been pardoned. In fact, considering everything he has done, being busted for disobeying court orders sounds like getting off easy.

I didn't agree with all the pardons and commutations but they've been talked about when they happened. Not sure what they have to do with the current pardon. The excuse I keep hearing is that the guy I bashed for 8 years did the same thing I'm doing.

Either way, you don't get to claim to be for law and order anymore. Or claim to defend the constitution. The pardon shows little regard for both. Just showed he was full of shit in all those speeches and his supporters suckers for thinking he meant it.

1) Federal courts told Joe Arpaio "knock it the fuck off because the shit you're doing is unconstitutional." More than once.

2) Joe Arpaio said "lol no" and kept on keepin' on. By the way, his "detain the brown people because they're probably illegal immigrants" thing resulted, at least once, in American citizens and legal residents being swept up in his net and detained without access to legal representation. But the Fourth Amendment isn't important because it hasn't anything to do with guns, amirite?

3) Joe Arpaio was, ultimately, convicted of criminal contempt of court - which is particularly odious in this context because as a lawman (never mind as an elected lawman), his first duty is to the rule of law and the Constitution, both of which he ignored whenever they inconvenienced his wet dream of repatriating all the illegals.

4) Trump pardoned him before sentencing, and without the usual review process from the Department of Justice, because he and Joe are of a piece when it comes to Latinos. Complained that it was a witch hunt and that Joe Arpaio was convicted "of doing his job."

Which is only true if you think his job is "fuck the Constitution, arrestin' brown people is what's important."

5) Pretty sure this list got posted upthread, but just in case here's a link to a bunch of the stuff Arpaio's been accused of over the years:

PhoenixNewTimes on Twitter: "We've been covering Joe Arpaio for more than 20 years. Here's a couple of things you should know about him... 1/many"

Again, this isn't "just doing his job" unless you have a serious chubby for sticking it to non-whites. This is a guy who took malicious glee in mistreatment of people suspected of being here illegally, and that attitude clearly either filtered down to his subordinates (for whom he's responsible), or else those were just the type of people he hired because they shared similar "values" to his own.

This is the dumpster fire Trump saw as worthy of the first use of his pardon power.

You can cherry pick a pardon or a commutation from virtually any modern President as being "bad," but please don't insult my intelligence and claim that because Clinton pardoned a campaign donor, or because Obama commuted the sentence of someone convicted of stealing classified information, or because George W. Bush commuted the sentence of someone convicted of outing an undercover espionage asset as political payback, that these are somehow morally equivalent to Trump pardoning someone charged with upholding the law and the Constitution for ignoring court orders to stop violating both.

Interesting NY Post commentary concerning constitution and Manning and Arpaio:

In pardoning Arpaio, Trump repeats an Obama mistake | New York Post

There's a technical difference there that I think is important. Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, rather than pardoning her. Trump fully pardoned Arpaio. In the Manning case, Obama still acknowledges the guilt of Manning. Trump's and Arpaio's public statements indicate they don't acknowledge Arpaio's guilt (which is, incidentally, one of the federal criteria for granting a pardon).

Manning spent years in prison before his sentence was commuted. Arpaio's pardon is specifically about making sure he isn't punished.

Manning received, by far, the harshest sentence anyone convicted of violating the Espionage Act ever has.

Obama's commutation essentially acknowledged that in reducing the sentence while letting the conviction and its consequences stand (Manning will never be eligible for a security clearance again).

Arpaio is already back in court demanding that because the President pardoned him of the crime for which he was convicted, that the court should vacate the conviction entirely. That the court should give cover to his unconstitutional actions since the President already declared that he isn't gonna get punished for them.

What part of "these aren't remotely morally equivalent actions" do you and the rest of the Republican Apologists struggle with? Because I'm pretty sure at this point that the Party of Personal Accountability is anything but.

Im just trying to figure out the differences of the cases. Im not apologizing for Trump. Im just going by what Im seeing and reading and trying to figure out the differences.
You guys here are very adamant that Trump screwed up. but anything Trump does, you guys jump on him. So Im trying to figure out if you have a legit beef, or you are just doing what you have done since the beginning.

I see you points and they make a lot of sense. Then I see stuff like the Post article and want to see what the differences in opinions are and why.

Im not apologizing for anyone. I want to know what is closest to the truth.

Setting all the rest aside, this fact pattern is really troubling to me:

-person in an official sworn-in capacity commits questionable acts
-courts rule that he violates the constitution in doing so, order him to stop
-he simply refuses to obey the courts
-courts declare him in contempt, their proper recourse
-executive branch official intervenes and waves off all consequences for acts and contempt

I don't think you have to be rabidly anti-Trump to think about this and find it very, very troubling for the entire concept of "rule of law." Does this effectively mean that friends of the current President are simply exempt from obeying the Constitution and any laws beneath it, full stop?

One was a commutation, one was a pardon. I didn't agree with the commutation for what it's worth.

Seems like we'd be better off removing this power from Presidents.

Checks and balances. It's been abused on occasion but it's also a tool to keep a check on the judicial branch.

And remarkably there is a tweet for this occasion too. Good lord he tweeted a lot. Hasn't been occasion yet that you can't find a relevant tweet.

Not only giving out money, but Obama will be seen today standing in water and rain like he is a real President --- don't fall for it.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 30, 2012

Seems to me the whole check and balance aspect is getting abused by all 3 branches.

Have to agree with you up until the last sentence. If I'm not mistaken you live in or around Washington DC. You know the answer to your question regardless of if it's Trump, Obama, Bush, Kennedy... George Washington right?

Predictable.

All of these pardons suck, but the middle two are treason so idk where moral equivalency needs to come into the picture. I'd also point to Clinton's pardons of Puerto Rican terrorists before Rich, though that one was obviously shady for how it happened. But arguing about which pardon was slightly worse than other terrible pardons is missing the point. It'd be like arguing Vontaze Burfict shouldn't be suspended for a dirty hit because other players make dirty hits too.

(Btw, guess who investigated Clinton's pardon of Rich & found no wrongdoing? James Comey. Time is a flat circle.)

Maybe the executive branch check on the judiciary should be checked by needing approval from congress. :)

Arpaio was a really bad guy. One of the most despicable people to hold some semblance of power in this country. He actually got off incredibly easy in the first place if you look through what he did. Decades of violating others constitutional rights. Torturing of inmates. Destroying evidence. Imprisoning reporters. Hiring people to target enemies (he hired a PI to go after the Judge's family in that case). Ignoring sexual assault cases that included children. Even if the people in that county didn't care about that stuff, they should care about him costing them millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars in lawsuits.

The only reason I can think of that someone would still support Arpaio is for his racist beliefs. He is certainly no conservative. And he was a shitty law enforcement official.

Also the Judge that Arpaio went after and called liberal is one of the most conservative judges in the country. Is a huge fan of Scalia.

So, now you have the Defense Secretary saying "Don't mind what the President says, you guys can continue to serve for now" to transgender soldiers. Trump Twitter Tantrum incoming?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...udy/614711001/

As much as I hate Trump's poorly thought out transgender policy, it's a real problem when cabinet secretaries start ignoring the president's express wishes.

The real point should probably be whether Trump's wishes are legally binding. Does he have the authority to dictate something like that? I have no idea.

There's two lawsuits already that should decide that.

Trump shouldn't make policy in the slapdash manner he does, but he has the authority to make the policy in this instance. If he doesn't the courts will decide. A former general deciding to ignore the president is really bad precedent.

He's the top of the military's chain of command so he does have the authority to implement policy. The question would be if it's constitutional and whether he can show it, in some way, is a detriment to military readiness.

Mattis not implementing it immediately isn't a big concern IMO. Mattis is basically saying instead of creating a clusterfuck by following the president's wishes immediately, lets allow this study to complete and take the best course of action to implement his policy.

Immediately discharging all transgender soldiers would cause a ton of problems and would be a danger to military readiness. That gives him the authority to make this call and is why he was put in the position he's in. If Trump doesn't like the calls he's making he can replace him.

I think this is a non-story, but I can't quite tell because both the Trump directive and the articles about Mattis's action are pretty poorly written.

As I read the Trump directive, Mattis had until February 21, 2018 to put together a plan to implement the transgender ban, and until then the current policy of allowing transgender individuals to serve would continue. The really confusing part is that the current policy (allowing transgender service) is directed to be revoked unless and until the SecDef makes a recommendation that the President accepts there would be adverse effects from transgender soldiers continuing to serve.

I think all Mattis said today was that there would be no change until a study is completed. There wasn't going to be a change until February anyway, so the real rubber will meet the road if Mattis refuses to put forward a plan at that time. So for today, Mattis just did what the Presidential directive already said: continued to allow transgender soldiers for the time being. And who knows where we'll be then...

You can't make this stuff up.

Former DeVry official hired to run Education Dept. enforcement unit: report | TheHill

Drain the...oh nevermind.