This is a daily or weekly record of the Trump presidency so hopefully future generations will learn what happens when you elect an narcissistic, thin skinned, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic unqualified buffoon in a position of power where he has access to nuclear codes.
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https://horroroftrumpaspotus.blogspot.com/
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Twitter feed https://twitter.com/RealDbagDJTrump
Sunday, September 17, 2017
September 13th, 2017 - September 16th, 2017. 305-308 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election and 236-239 days since the Jan 20th inauguration.
About a month ago, some rich asshole shocked the country by responding to a violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in a way that was completely vile. Defending white supremacists and stating that ‘both sides’ were responsible for the violence, Americans across the country were horrified that such a racist message could come from the President of the United States. And now, some areas of the country are standing up to it.
California is now sending a strong message to the rich asshole and his administration in response to the horrific endorsements the rich asshole has given to white supremacists. The lower house of the California legislature has just passed a resolution that is demanding that Congress censure the rich asshole so that the undeserving POTUS is clear that “We will no longer tolerate his behavior.” Assembly member Tony Thurmond said:
“The leader of the free world can’t continue to use language that legitimizes the actions of extremists groups that promote hate. Congress must exercise its power to check the president by voting for his immediate censure.”
While a GOP-dominant Congress likely won’t censure the rich asshole, this initiative marks the first attempt to censure a sitting President since 1834 – and that should send a strong message. The Hill also reports that California is trying to get other states to join them in similar ways, demanding that the rich asshole should “publicly apologize to all Americans for his racist and bigoted behavior.”
This bill follows the rich asshole’s own resolution in which he tried to condemn the attacks in Charlottesville. However, he continues to fall short with his weak statements. Refusing to denounce the specific hate groups that are responsible, the rich asshole instead spoke against “racism in all forms.” Here’s the rich asshole’s weak, spineless statement:
“We condemn the recent violence in Charlottesville and oppose hatred, bigotry, and racism in all forms.”
Hours before, the rich asshole had doubled down on his horrendous “both sides” comment, stating that counterprotesters were also to blame:
“You have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also. When you look at really what’s happened since Charlottesville, a lot of people are saying and people have actually written, ‘Gee the rich asshole may have a point.’”
That is seriously disgusting. For that statement alone, the rich asshole deserves the treatment he’s getting from California.
Panicked the rich asshole desperately begs his base not to leave him in racist morning rant
Feeling the heat from his own supporters after appearing to soften on work permits for Dreamers, the rich asshole frantically took to Twitter with a fresh helping of nativist red meat.
Thursday was not a good day for some rich asshole with his far-right, anti-immigrant, white nationalist base.
After the rich asshole met with Democratic leadership and reportedly negotiated on both DACA work permits and the border wall, prominent the rich asshole supporters took to social media and the airwaves to warn him that he was “dead among his base” if he kept it up. Some the rich asshole voters are now even burning their MAGA hats.
The same people who shrugged when KKK leader David Duke said he and the rich asshole are on the same page lost their minds when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said it.
the rich asshole, who has gone to absurd lengths to make this narrow slice of white supremacists happy, was clearly stung, because Friday morning, he jumped on Twitter and aggressively pandered to them.
First, he attacked the British government for failing to prevent a terrorist attack before they had released all the details, prompting condemnations from terror experts and British officials. He then cited it as an example of why the Muslim ban should be “far larger” and why we should “cut off the Internet.”
He then followed up with an attack on President Barack Obama and a claim that he has “made more progress in the last nine months against ISIS than the Obama Administration has made in 8 years,” glossing over the fact that his Pentagon is in fact following Obama’s ISIS plan exactly.
Next, the rich asshole lobbed an attack on ESPN for commentator Jemele Hill’s completely accurate description of him as a “white supremacist” and demanding that the network apologize — which it already did.
Finally, he rounded off the rant by vowing he would oppose any allowance of “chain migration” — a derogatory, charged term for family members of U.S. residents being granted residency as well.
It is obvious from this series of jumbled hyper-nationalist outbursts that the rich asshole is genuinely afraid of losing the base he has worked so hard to cultivate and bring into the mainstream of American politics. Every policy decision he makes is grounded in his immediate emotion. And we as Americans are paying the price.
Last year, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz warned that if voters wanted to elect more Republicans who would cut deals with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, “then I guess some rich asshole is your guy.”
This week, that’s what the rich asshole did—and Never the rich asshole conservatives say it’s just what they feared.
“This is exactly what Cruz and many of his supporters warned about,” said Amanda Carpenter, a former top aide to Cruz. “This would be a delicious schadenfreude sandwich if any conservatives had the appetite to eat it. It's mostly sad.”
the rich asshole’s deal-making this week with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on the most important issue to his base—immigration—has outraged some of his strongest supporters, including some at the hardline outlet Breitbart, home to his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Conservative commentators such as Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham are tweeting about the rich asshole irately, and some activists are taking to Twitter to show off images of the campaign’s Make America Great Again hats on fire.
But Republicans who have insisted for years that the rich asshole is no conservative say this turn to the Democrats was entirely predictable.
“I was concerned about things like this, I am concerned about it,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas-based conservative activist, speaking broadly of the rich asshole dealing more closely with Democrats than his own party. “This is where Ted Cruz was right when he said [the rich asshole] was going to cut deals with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.”
“For people who are motivated by a certain set of ideas, principles, policies—yes, you’re going to be disappointed by this president again and again,” Steinhauser said.
Before departing to Naples, Florida to meet with victims of Irma, President some rich asshole stopped to make a statement about DACA outside the White House on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017.
Indeed, the rich asshole, a former Democratic donor, has never hid the fact that he values making deals more than adhering to any particular ideology. But until recently, the rich asshole’s upending of Republican orthodoxy had often played into the more nationalist, populist vision championed by Bannon, Breitbart and prominent talk radio figures.
To the delight of the burgeoning nationalist wing of the party, the rich asshole’s campaign was centered on a hardline immigration platform, with promises to build a large border wall, have Mexico pay for it, and to deport undocumented immigrants. His dramatic about-face this week—with Pelosi, no less, the ultimate conservative bogeyman—felt like a shocking miscalculation to some of his more ardent backers, if not to his longtime conservative critics.
“If he goes soft on what his supporters believe is the defining issue of our time, I don’t know who’s going to be left to support him,” said one source close to the White House. “The idea that the rich asshole can pivot to the middle and get Democrats across the country to like him—it’s fool’s gold.”
In the past, according to The New York Times, Bannon had described the rich asshole as an “imperfect vessel” for the realignment he was pushing, but one with whom he could work all the same, seeing his candidacy and then White House as the biggest platform yet for those ideals. Now, say some strategists, Schumer appears to see the rich asshole in a similar way, for his own set of policy objectives.
“They both saw in him a vessel to work their viewpoint,” said Scott Jennings, a plugged-in GOP strategist. “For Bannon, he was a vessel, but a vessel to a longer-term political realignment. For Schumer, it’s short-term and transactional. Today, he sees the rich asshole not getting along with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, he steps into the breach, understands the rich asshole is driven, to some degree, by a desire for good press. What’s the fastest way to get good press? Align yourself with liberal Democrats. That’s what’s happening.”
Jennings said he didn’t think Schumer was “under any illusions that the rich asshole is going to magically become what is essentially a liberal Democratic president,” pointing in particular to the rich asshole’s position on tax reform.
But he warned the rich asshole not to underestimate the Democrats, even if they are willing to work with him for now: “For whatever happy memories some rich asshole has of dealing with Schumer and Pelosi, if they were to get control of either house of Congress, the subpoenas start flying. If they get control of both of them, articles of impeachment will fly.”
Rick Tyler, a former spokesman for Cruz’s presidential campaign, said there’s nothing wrong with negotiating with Democrats—“so long as they are signing up to you, not you signing up to them. But this appears to be some rich asshole signing up to them.” (His old boss, Cruz, has said it’s “perfectly fine” to meet with Democrats, but has also been skeptical of Democratic interest in broader cooperation with Republicans).
“I went on TV countless times saying some rich asshole is not a Republican, not a conservative, doesn’t share our ideology, we can’t count on him, he’s not been down for the cause, so to speak,” Tyler said. Pointing to the rich asshole’s past donations to Democrats and the rich asshole’s own remarks indicating that he’s a deal-maker above all else, Tyler said: “That should have been a clarion warning for Republicans and conservatives who hold a governing philosophy.”
The conservative base knew all of this during the campaign, however. It didn’t matter then, and there are signs that it ultimately may not matter now, at least in terms of the rich asshole’s standing with them. Interviews with conservative activists across the country this week, as the immigration news played out, revealed that many are much more comfortable criticizing Congress than criticizing the president, and some are inclined to believe that he was forced to deal with Democrats because of intransigent Republican leadership.
“The media is saying he can do nothing right, therefore the base is saying the president can do nothing wrong,” said one former senior campaign adviser, stressing that the rich asshole’s standing with the conservative base remains rock-solid, and that there is a circling-the-wagons effect. “It’s like saying, ‘Look, you want to come at him with everything and the kitchen sink? Well guess what, we’re going to be the wall in front of him.’ They just want him to do his job. It doesn’t even matter if the criticism is actually accurate.”
Meanwhile, Larry Kudlow, a conservative economist and media personality who has informally advised the rich asshole and considers Bannon a friend, pushed back on the idea that the rich asshole is malleable. He pointed to the president’s past writings and books, and said he has consistently maintained much of the philosophy expressed there.
Of course, the most famous of those writings is the rich asshole’s “The Art of the Deal.”
“the rich asshole made a very shrewd move here,” Kudlow said of the dealings with the Democrats. “He changed some of the terms of the trade. That’s what I love about him. He’s the chaos guy.”
The rich asshole’s top supporters are in a full-blown panic. They’re right to be afraid.
By Greg SargentSeptember 15 (Alex Brandon/Associated Press)
THE MORNING PLUM:
With the chatter intensifying about the possibility of President Some rich asshole cutting a deal to protect the “dreamers,” The Post reports today that his loudest supporters are in a fury. They are warning that “the base” will desert him if he commits such a massive betrayal.
But the Post report also tells us something else: His top supporters are letting the mask slip and revealing doubts about whether this will actually end up happening. And this underscores why this moment is so important. Hopefully, it will shed much-needed light on the true nature of Some rich asshole’s nationalist appeal to a large swath of the American public — and how deep the ugly side of that appeal really runs.
The most vocal immigration hard-liners who backed Some rich asshole in the media and Congress — people such as Ann Coulter, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), and Stephen K. Bannon and his merry Breitbart warriors — are warning Some rich asshole that his voters won’t tolerate it if he agrees to legislative protections for hundreds of thousands of people brought here illegally as children, as part of a deal with Dems. But the Post report shows appropriate skepticism toward this notion, and tells us this:
Yet the lasting political cost of Some rich asshole’s engagement with top Democrats on immigration remained ambiguous. While Coulter and others vented, several conservative leaders Thursday remained hesitant about breaking with the president publicly given his continued grass-roots support and their desire to focus Republican ire on the leadership in Congress.
“The jury is still out on whether the base starts to leave him. And I’m not sure what the truth is,” Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said in an interview. “If this stands and we end up with amnesty, the base that was pulled together because of immigration will start to peel off in significant ways.”
But, King added, “No one is quite sure about how this will play out and whether it’s truly what we worry it’ll be.”
That is a striking admission: Some rich asshole’s top supporters — and, heck, the rest of us — simply don’t know whether Some rich asshole voters will be alienated by a deal protecting the dreamers. They might stick with him if he blesses such a deal, particularly (as I’ve suggested) if it’s packaged with increased border security.
It is often pointed out that the press is overly obsessed with what Some rich asshole voters think. That’s true. But in this case, it’s worth some attention. If it turns out to be true that Some rich asshole voters will accept a deal protecting the dreamers, that would suggest that Some rich asshole’s nationalism — as defined by the likes of Bannon, Breitbart, White House adviser Stephen Miller and the rest of the “populist economic nationalist” contingent around Some rich asshole — might not have quite the pull with his voters that we thought. This is clearly what King and others fear — and for good reason.
Remember, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that Some rich asshole would rescind protections for the dreamers, he conspicuously claimed these “illegal aliens” steal jobs from American workers. Bannon has come out for getting them to “self deport.” Miller is privately scheming to undercut any deal to protect them. The “populist economic nationalist” contingent constantly pushes the line that undocumented immigrants are a destructive, invasive, criminal presence — the dreamers included. But Some rich asshole yesterday undercut this narrative by tweeting that the dreamers are blameless for their plight and are making positive contributions to American life. What if a lot of Some rich asshole voters end up agreeing with him? That’s bad news for the populist-economic-nationalist-snake-oil purveyors.
Will Wilkinson argues that protecting the dreamers shouldn’t actually be at odds with populist nationalism, because the dreamers are culturally American, and keeping them here does not undermine the nationalist contingent’s vision of cultural nationality. Wilkinson theorizes that those screaming about this deal are really trying to induce Some rich asshole to insist on other draconian measures as part of it. That is true: The motive here is also to get poison pills inserted into any deal, driving away Dems and killing it.
But if Some rich asshole were to agree to a deal that is not loaded up with a lot of hateful nonsense, and many of his voters supported it, that would not be insignificant. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes argues that, even if you accept Some rich asshole’s victory as fundamentally an assertion of white nationalism, if he, the white guy who is in charge, makes the deals protecting the dreamers, his voters might be fine with it. This would still have horrible implications. But at least it would mean there is not widespread support for carrying out this nationalist agenda by inflicting a humanitarian disaster on this particular vulnerable group, i.e., the dreamers.
That is not what Bannon and his fellow travelers want you to believe. They want you to believe the country is cheering on the enactment of that nationalist agenda and that the only ones objecting are squeamish “elites.” Put it this way: If Bannon is correct and there is widespread support for a nationalism that includes inducing hundreds of thousands of young people who were brought here through no fault of their own to return to countries they don’t even know, then surely all of the primary challengers to GOP Senate incumbents he intends to back will run on that, right?
To be sure, even if there is a deal on the dreamers that Some rich asshole voters accept, all of his other horrors would still be proceeding apace: The veiled Muslim ban, the mass deportations, the refusal to unambiguously condemn white supremacy and so forth. And it’s true that this could end up buttressing little more than a dangerous notion of the dreamers being “different” from the rest of the otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants. But if Some rich asshole ends up talking his voters out of inflicting this one cruel, disastrous outcome on this one large population, at least we know such a thing is possible.
Leaving the issue in Mr. Trump’s hands could prove beneficial for Republicans, ridding them of a difficult job. A person familiar with the discussions said Mr. McConnell welcomed Mr. Trump being the Republicans’ point man on immigration.
The theory appears to be that if Trump blesses a deal, Republicans might take less heat from Trump voters for “selling out” on immigration. That seems plausible: Trump voters may well follow his lead.
On that last one, as I noted yesterday, the key dividing line might be this: Dems can accept more spending on border security but not a deal that results in increased deportations or self-deportations.
Battleground senators and House members who represent ethnically and politically diverse communities stand to benefit in the midterm from Trump’s DACA deal. They could also suffer at the ballot box if the negotiations collapse and participants in the program are threatened with deportation. [But] in safe Republican districts, voters tend to be more homogenous, and more circumspect, on immigration matters.
Wait, some Republicans might politically benefit from doing the right thing on this issue? Impossible!
Miller, an architect of Trump’s hard-line immigration policies, expressed displeasure about the development to other White House and legislative aides and strategized about what to do next, according to people familiar with the calls.
* JOHN KELLY SAYS MEXICO IS ON VERGE OF COLLAPSE: During the private meeting between Trump and Dem leaders at which a tentative deal on the dreamers was struck, Chief of Staff John Kelly weighed in, saying we need much more robust border security:
He likened Mexico, one of the United States’ most important trading and law enforcement partners, to Venezuela under the regime of Hugo Chávez, the former leader, suggesting it was on the verge of a collapse that would have repercussions in the United States, according to two people who attended the meeting.
That should help in getting Mexico to pay for Trump’s wall.
* SOMETIMES LIES ACTUALLY DO MATTER: Paul Krugman points out that Trump lied his way into the White House and Republicans won Congress in part by lying about Obamacare, but as repeal’s failure shows, lies can only get you so far:
The story of tax reform … is starting to look a bit similar. During the campaign Trump could get away with posing as an economic populist while offering a tax plan that would add $6 trillion to the deficit, with half the benefit going to the richest 1 percent of the population. But this kind of bait-and-switch may not work once an actual bill is on the table.
One can only hope. And you’d think it might matter that the American people have already been exposed for decades to the lies used to sell tax cuts for the rich.
the rich asshole's Government wants to punish people who speak out against him, especially if they're black women
When a white Miss America contestant criticised the rich asshole she was praised; when a black ESPN hosts called out his racism the Government said she should be fired. We need to stop silencing black women in America
It came as no surprise to me that on Wednesday, the rich asshole’s press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders utilised the people's podium to call for Hill's firing, deeming her claims "outrageous". Black women's truth-telling has always provoked outrage in those dependant on false narratives to function.
There's a running joke in my family that I became "evil" when I turned five. Five is when I began furrowing my brow, crossing my arms, and "talking back." It's when I developed a sense of justice, when I began challenging those around me to confront their inconsistencies and wrongdoings. It's when I first experienced someone plugging their ears, digging in their heels, and scorning me instead. It's when I got my first lessons in the repercussions of being black and female with an opinion no one wanted to hear.
I'm unwavering in my dedication to language. Black women committed to truth-telling have to form an intimate relationship with words. We must master, curate, dilute, manipulate, and soften them. We train ourselves to turn harsh truths into something palatable, lest we be punished. Our right to free speech has always been contingent upon our restraint.
This is why the Administration’s comments hit such a raw nerve for those of us who value our supposed right to free speech in America. The United States Government utilising its platform to suggest that a company fire an employee on the basis of criticising the President is an inappropriate – and terrifying – abuse of power. And yet, those staunch protectors of the right to free speech were largely silent this week, despite the noise they make when people perpetrating hate speech or bias are held accountable. They didn't come to her defence despite the vast implications of Sanders' statements. They didn't see themselves in her silencing. They quietly condoned it.
This is not an accident; black women are the difficult daughters of America. Our truths are dismissed as "too much." Our existence holds a mirror to the meaning of society's disdain for us. Our struggles are a call to action. Our realities are too tangled to tackle. Hill's truth doesn't implicate the rich asshole alone, it implicates everyone doing nothing about the glaring hypocrisy in his reign as the head of a country whose brand is freedom and equality.
Because of this, Jemele Hill is not met with the enthusiastic applause that boomed through Boardwalk Hall when Miss Texas lambasted the rich asshole's under reaction to the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville. Miss Texas is young, white, traditionally beautiful, and a little rebellious. Her calls to justice couldn't be more on-brand.
But Hill is the manifestation of an ideal that America falls short of, so she's met instead with condemnation on the national stage. The press secretary wants her to be punished for speaking the truth so many non-white Americans know to be true. In fact, Hill will keep her job, but ESPN’s public statement that they “accept her apologies” reinforce the idea that black women should not speak out of turn, and certainly not dare criticise the most powerful man in the country.
I understand why Hill felt the need to apologise for breaking the unspoken rule of restraint. A lot of black women grew up like I did, learning to live inside a sequence of sorries to survive. Those of us who refuse are made to suffer, and Hill is simply sparing herself as much as she can in the aftermath. I support her in that.
But when this all blows over and our outrage moves on to even more destructive remarks – or even worse, actual legislation – coming from the White House, let’s not stop asking who rallies behind America's difficult daughters? In the rich asshole's America and all Americas preceding, the answer is largely no one. And America will never be what it says it is until it does.
The rich asshole demands ESPN 'apologize for untruth'
President some rich asshole demanded an apology from ESPN on Friday “for untruth,” days after one of the sports network’s highest profile employees called the president “a white supremacist.”
“ESPN is paying a really big price for its politics (and bad programming),” the rich asshole tweeted Friday morning. “People are dumping it in RECORD numbers. Apologize for untruth!”
the rich asshole’s tweets were the president’s first comments on the dispute between the White House and ESPN’s Jemele Hill, a black journalist who co-hosts “SportsCenter.”
Hill called the rich asshole “a white supremacist” on Monday. She accused him of surrounding himself with white supremacists and said he is “the most ignorant, offensive president of my lifetime” whose presidency is “a direct result of white supremacy.”
“He is unqualified and unfit to be president,” she said. “He is not a leader. And if he were not white, he never would have been elected.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday called Hill’s tweets “outrageous” and suggested they amounted to a “fireable offense.”
Sanders faced a series of questions Friday, and while she wouldn’t clarify whether she believes Hill should be fired, Sanders stood by her initial comment and accused the company of being hypocritical and inconsistent.
“I think the point is that ESPN has been hypocritical. They should hold anchors to a fair and consistent standard,” Sanders said.
She pointed specifically to Linda Cohn, who was told in April to take a day off after saying on a radio show that ESPN had lost part of its base by becoming too political.
Hill addressed “the elephant in the room” with a statement Wednesday in which he did not apologize but expressed regret for painting the network “in an unfair light.”
My comments on Twitter expressed my personal beliefs,” she said.
the rich asshole has continued to face criticism for his response to a fatal white supremacist rally in Virginia last month. The president received bipartisan backlash after failing to explicitly condemn the white supremacists, KKK members and neo-Nazis who clashed with counterprotesters in Charlottesville. He eventually did but doubled down on his original stance blaming “both sides” for violence that occurred.
He told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday that he maintained that position during a meeting Wednesday with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the upper chamber’s lone black Republican who had criticized the president for his response.
“I think especially in light of the advent of Antifa, if you look at what’s going on there, you have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also, and essentially that’s what I said,” the rich asshole recalled telling Scott.
A rich asshole supporter burns his 'Make America Great Again' hat (Screen cap).
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Supporters of President some rich asshole are still furious about his decision to work with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on helping to shield undocumented immigrants who were brought into the United States as children from being deported.
Now some the rich asshole fans have taken their displeasure a step further and have started setting their “Make America Great Again” hats on fire to protest the rich asshole seemingly going soft on his signature campaign issue.
Angry the rich asshole fan Luis Withrow posted a video of himself on Twitter angrily telling the rich asshole that he will “never make America great again” if he didn’t “drain the swamp” in Washington, DC. He then set his MAGA hat ablaze.
"Loser terrorists must be dealt with in a much tougher manner," he wrote. "The internet is their main recruitment tool which we must cut off & use better!"
The tweet came after another message in which he appeared to suggest that the attacker had been known to police, despite Scotland Yard not having said so. "These are sick and demented people who were in the sights of Scotland Yard," he posted in a preceding message.
A following message said that he would look to increase his Muslim ban into the United States. "The travel ban into the United States should be far larger, tougher and more specific-but stupidly, that would not be politically correct!" he posted.
That call actually came during the same event where he launched his plans for a "complete shutdown" on Muslims entering the US, the policy that later became the travel ban.
"We're losing a lot of people because of the internet," the rich asshole said then. "We have to see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening.
“We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that internet up in some ways. Somebody will say, 'Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are foolish people."
Two days after the White House publicly encouraged ESPN to fire host Jemele Hill for calling the rich asshole a white supremacist, the rich asshole himself attacked the network, characterized the idea that he’s a bigot as an “untruth,” and demanded an apology.
“ESPN is paying a really big price for its politics (and bad programming),” the rich asshole tweeted. “People are dumping it in RECORD numbers. Apologize for untruth!”
he rich asshole’s apology demand comes one day after he reiterated his widely-denounced comments that “both sides” were to blame for the violence at a white supremacists march last month in Charlottesville. His comments marked the third occasion that the president has advanced the idea that there’s a moral equivalence between racists and those who gather to protest them.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday, the rich asshole said that he’s actually heard from many people who appreciated his moral equivocation, which was widely applauded by white supremacists.
“I think especially in light of the advent of Antifa, if you look at what’s going on there, you have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also and essentially that’s what I said,” the rich asshole said on Thursday. “When you look at really what’s happened since Charlottesville, a lot of people are saying and people have actually written, ‘Gee, the rich asshole may have a point.’ I said there’s some very bad people on the other side also.”
Rather than apologizing for saying there “were very fine people” among the white supremacists who gathered in Charlottesville, made Nazi salutes, and marched through the streets chanting “Jews will not replace us” the day before an alleged Nazi sympathizer drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one and injuring 19 others, the rich asshole reaffirmed his original position. At the same time, he’s demanding an apology from a black woman who tweeted, “some rich asshole is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself [with] other white supremacists.”
The day after Hill posted that tweet, ESPN released a statement saying her comments “do not represent the position of ESPN.” Hill hasn’t apologized for her comments, but released a statement expressing regret that her comments “painted ESPN in an unfair light.”
On Thursday, ThinkProgress broke news that on the same day Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders encouraged ESPN to fire Hill from the White House podium, ESPN made an unsuccessful attempt to kick Hill off the air and replace her with another anchor.
"We had a great meeting. Tim Scott's been a friend of mine for a long time. I've been a supporter of his — I was one of his earliest supporters. We had a great talk yesterday. I think especially in light of the advent of Antifa, if you look at what's going on there. You have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also, and essentially that's what I said. Now, because of what's happened since then with Antifa — you look at really what's happened since Charlottesville, a lot of people are saying and people have actually written, 'Gee, the rich asshole might have a point.' I said, 'You've got some very bad people on the other side also,' which is true. But we had a great conversation. And he also has legislation, which I actually like very much, the concept of which I support, to get people going into certain areas and building and constructing and putting people to work. I told him yesterday that's a concept I can support very easily."
Holy cow.
This should have been an absolute softball. "Yes, the Senator and I had a great meeting. We talked about ways to celebrate diversity -- both within my administration and the country more broadly." The end. Next question.
the rich asshole didn't do that. Instead he took the question and decided to use it as a launching pad to re-litigate the lowest moment of his presidency.
Consider these two quotes:
1."I think especially in light of the advent of Antifa, if you look at what's going on there. You have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also, and essentially that's what I said."
2."Because of what's happened since then with Antifa — you look at really what's happened since Charlottesville, a lot of people are saying and people have actually written, 'Gee, the rich asshole might have a point.'"
I'll boil down those two quotes into four words: "I told you so."
Here's the thing: We knew/know that the rich asshole believes he was right all along about Charlottesville -- that equating white supremacists and neo-Nazis and those there to protest against them was, at root, a fair comparison. (BREAKING NEWS: It wasn't!) That all of the responses to his remarks were just political correctness run amok -- the same sort of stuff the rich asshole ran against (and beat) in 2016.
Remember that at his campaign rally in Phoenix last month, the rich asshole insisted he was right about Charlottesville and the threat posed by anti-fascists. "You know, they show up in the helmets and the black masks, and they've got clubs and they've got everything -- Antifa!," he said to much applause.
But, even if the rich asshole believed all that, what would possibly compel him to take a VERY simple question about a meeting with Tim Scott and turn it into a series of quotes sure to re-stoke the debate over Charlottesville (and his response) after it finally appeared to be losing some of its heat?
The answer has to be this: Because he believes he was right then. And now. And he cannot deal with the fact that most people believe he screwed up in his initial response. He is obsessed with winning, with being right -- even when it works directly against his political self-interest.
·the rich asshole signed the joint resolution condemning white supremacy and honoring Heather Heyer
·On Thursday, he again blamed both sides for the violence in Charlottesville
Washington (CNN) Hours after he returned to rhetoric equating violence from white supremacists with those protesting them, the White House said Thursday that President some rich asshole signed a resolution condemning white supremacy.
In the White House statement, the rich asshole said he opposed bigotry in all forms.
"No matter the color of our skin or our ethnic heritage, we all live under the same laws, we all salute the same great flag, and we are all made by the same almighty God," the rich asshole said.
Congress passed the resolution earlier this week, pushing the rich asshole to put his signature on something expressly singling out white supremacy for condemnation. The White House said in response to the resolution's passage that the rich asshole would "absolutely" sign it, and looked forward to the opportunity.
The resolution condemned the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month and "white nationalists, white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and other hate groups."
The resolution also honored Heather Heyer, who was killed amid the racially charged violence that weekend. A 20-year-old, who acquaintances described as a neo-Nazi sympathizer, was charged with second-degree murder in Heyer's death.
the rich asshole initially responded to the deadly incident by decrying violence on "many sides," then after sustained calls for him to denounce white supremacy specifically, the rich asshole delivered a statement doing so.
Then at a press conference several days later, the rich asshole said there were "very fine people" on both sides.
On Wednesday, the rich asshole met with GOP South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the chamber's lone African-American Republican. The President said Thursday that the meeting went well, but repeated rhetoric casting blame on both sides for the violence at Charlottesville.
some rich asshole on Thursday continued his quest to divert attention away from the multiple investigations into Russian interference in 2016 presidential election and possible collusion with his campaign to his bogus claim that former president Barack Obama “wire tapped” the rich asshole Tower in last year.
Discussing Susan Rice aboard Air Force One, the rich asshole once again argued the former Obama national security adviser improperly unmasked members of his team under his predecessor.
“She’s not supposed to be doing that and what she did was wrong,” the rich asshole told reports. “We’ve been saying that. It’s just the tip of the iceberg. She wasn’t supposed to be doing that, the unmasking and the surveillance.”
“I heard she admitted that yesterday,” he added.
Au contraire, Mr. President. According to CNN, Rice met with House investigators Wednesday to defend her “unmasking” of senior the rich asshole officials—a process that sounds nefarious, but has been described by experts as routine. During her testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, Rice explained she “unmasked” top the rich asshole aides in an effort to learn why United Arab Emirates crown prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed was in New York City in December.
As it turns out, Zayed was in town to attend a meeting between former the rich asshole National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, the rich asshole’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon. As CNN reports, that meeting took place shortly before a separate the rich asshole Tower meeting where Bannon, Flynn and Kushner tried to establish a backchannel line of communication between the rich asshole team and Russian government officials.
Top Republicans, including Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC), have insisted there is nothing “there” regarding the rich asshole’s “wiretap” claim, despite the president claiming he felt “somewhat vindicated” by documents related to Rice’s unmasking of the rich asshole campaign officials.
“The unmasking thing was all created by Devin Nunes (R-CA),” Burr told reporters in July, referring to the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Nunes famously claimed to recuse himself from the committee’s Russia investigation, only to launch his own shadow investigation of Rice and the Obama administration.
Nunes was a member of the executive committee on the rich asshole’s transition team.
Disbelief, outrage and shrugs: How the rich asshole's bipartisan immigration dinner shuffled the swamp
the rich asshole 'fairly close' to a DACA deal with Dems01:00
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
·The White House pushed back on the Democrats' characterization
·Across Capitol Hill, Republicans were reeling over signs of a DACA agreement
(CNN)Outside the House floor Thursday morning, conservatives were having a very hard time believing that President some rich asshole would undercut Republicans on immigration.
It was all over the news: the rich asshole had sat down to dinner with Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. And over some Chinese food, the rich asshole had agreed to a broad framework to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipients in exchange for border security, according to Democrats. The deal, one source familiar said, was to pair the DREAM Act with enhanced border protections. That did not include, however, the rich asshole's marquee campaign promise of a border wall.
The White House pushed back on the Democrats' characterization of the meeting, but the fact is still that the rich asshole has fundamentally shifted the contours of how he governs. After a campaign that began with accusing immigrants of being rapists and criminals, the rich asshole was at the table talking immigration with Democrats.
"I find it hard to believe," said Virginia Republican David Brat. "I find it very hard to believe that he's going ... 'whoops, I flipped 180 on the seminal issue of our campaign.'
"Here's what I'm worried about. Fake news. Don't believe what you see in the newspaper. Believe what you see with your own eyes," said Scott Perry, another conservative member of the House Freedom Caucus.
Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Lou Barletta, one of the rich asshole's earliest supporters in Congress, repeatedly said he didn't believe that the President cut any deal, and even when reporters quoted him, said "we don't know that."
"I have no idea what's going to happen with this," said the aide. "Like, seriously no idea. So the President is out there negotiating with Nancy and Chuck and he's cutting deals when Republicans control both the House and the Senate, and insofar as I know, they weren't in the room on these deals. How can you make a deal with Congress that doesn't include both sides of the aisle? I just don't get it."
Trust between Republican leadership and the White House was already eroding. Over the August recess, the rich asshole called out House Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell by name on Twitter. The tension was exasperated last week when the rich asshole sided with Democrats in a bipartisan Oval Office meeting over the length of the debt ceiling increase.
"Anybody who thought the rich asshole was a Republican, I think was misled," said Mike Simpson, a Republican from Idaho who said he wasn't surprised by the rich asshole's immigration negotiations. "He's a dealmaker and he'll make it with whoever he can."
Now, Republicans are trying to figure out what the rich asshole's meeting with Democrats means. Kevin Brady, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee who has been working around the clock on a Republican tax-reform package, wouldn't answer a question about whether he feared the rich asshole might push Republicans aside there too.
"Let me think about that," Brady said with a grin.
For Republican leadership, the rich asshole's sit-down with Democrats could go two ways. Some Republicans believe that the rich asshole may make it easier for Republican leaders to thread the needle on immigration. the rich asshole, after all, spent his campaign promising border security. If the rich asshole cuts the deal with Democrats than it is the rich asshole's to own.
"Look, the rich asshole has more credibility than our leadership on the issue of border security so he's the one who has to cut the deal ultimately and he's the one who's got to sell it," one Republican member told CNN.
For some, the rich asshole's negotiations with Democrats is a referendum on leadership and party infighting. Republicans in the House passed a plan to overhaul Obamacare, but the Senate did not. After failing to repeal Obamacare, a seven-year campaign promise, members believe they are the reason why the rich asshole may be turning to Democratic colleagues.
"Ideally, Republicans here should be involved in DACA. I don't fault the President. He needs to get something done. I will say the House and the Senate needs to get its act together," said Rep. Tom MacArthur of New Jersey. "I think what he's doing is putting us on notice."
Some Republicans, however, who have long been supportive of DACA didn't care how the President got it done.
"Hey, if you guys get this worked out something that I can vote for, fine by me," said Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada.
Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona who has been attacked by the rich asshole in the past on immigration said "I'm glad he's talking to Democrats. And I'm glad that this hopefully will get resolved."
On the Democratic side, the feelings are that their leadership can negotiate but should be careful to remember who the rich asshole was on the campaign trail.
"I'm happy that Nancy and Chuck are so, you know, very enthusiastic and positive about the meeting. I'm sure they gave it their all and I'm sure that that's their interpretation," said Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez. "But with some rich asshole, the only interpretation that's really meaningful -- it's his. And then you have to put it on a clock to see how long it lasts."
President the rich asshole has signed a resolution condemning white supremacists following violence at a rally in Charlottesville, Va., last month, the White House announced late Thursday.
"As Americans, we condemn the recent violence in Charlottesville and oppose hatred, bigotry, and racism in all forms," the rich asshole said in a statement released by the White House.
"No matter the color of our skin or our ethnic heritage, we all live under the same laws, we all salute the same great flag, and we are all made by the same almighty God," he continued.
"We are a Nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. As one people, let us move forward to rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that bring us together as Americans."
The White House announced that the rich asshole signed the measure hours after the president revisited his controversial response to the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, saying there are "some pretty bad dudes on the other side also."
A bipartisan group of senators had introduced the measure amid concerns about the rich asshole's response to the violence, which erupted as white nationalists rallied to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
The resolution condemns “the racist violence and domestic terrorist attack” in Charlottesville, where a suspected white supremacist was accused of plowing a car into a crowd of counter protesters, killing one and injuring more than a dozen others.
It also rejects “white nationalism, white supremacy, and neo-Nazism as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values that define the people of the United States.”
The White House announced earlier this week that the rich asshole would sign the resolution.
In a pair of tweets on Thursday afternoon, some rich asshole proved once again how out of touch he is with the American public. Just three months ago, Pew Research published a study showing that a substantial majority of Americans – some 60 percent – feel the federal government is responsible for providing healthcare coverage for all citizens. Not only that, but the formerly-controversial idea of a “single-payer” system, like the Medicare For All bill just introduced with wide Democratic support by Senator Bernie Sanders, was favored by a third of Americans.
the rich asshole, however, sees universal coverage, enjoyed by every highly-developed nation in the world except the United States, as a “curse” on the citizens of this country.
Universal coverage was long considered a pipe dream, even as recently as during the primary campaign between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Secretary Clinton dismissed it as an “idea that will never, ever come to pass.” But buoyed by the popularity of Senator Sanders after the disastrous win by some rich asshole in November, the Democratic Party has moved decidedly left on the issue.
At the time of Sanders’ introduction of his bill, painted as the sane alternative to the Republican frenzy to strip all Americans of non-private health coverage, there were a number of Democratic senators signed on, including those widely considered to be front-runners for the Democratic nomination in 2020. Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and even the favorites among Clinton loyalists, Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand, all joined Senator Sanders in introducing Medicare For All. They were joined by Tammy Baldwin, Richard Blumenthal, Martin Heinrich, Mazie Hirono, Pat Leahy, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, Brian Schatz, Jeanne Shaheen, Tom Udall, and Sheldon Whitehouse.
The irony, of course, is that even if one considers universal coverage a “curse” as some rich asshole does, the bill stands essentially no chance of passage in the first place. the rich asshole would love to portray himself as a savior of conservative principles, but with Republicans in firm control of Congress (at least until 2018), the odds of the rich asshole even needing to look through his plethora of gold-plated pens to find the one for vetoes are slim to none.
‘He likes me, anyway’: Chuck Schumer caught on hot mic gushing over new friendship with the rich asshole
Such is true for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who was caught on a Senate floor hot mic admitting that President some rich asshole may like him personally, but he might not like Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
“He likes us,” Schumer is heard on the mic, recorded by CSPAN as the Senate prepared to go into session.
“He likes me, anyway,” Schumer said with a chuckle.
Schumer went on to recount advice he’d given the rich asshole, presumably during one of their meetings.
“I said, ‘Mr. President, you’re much better off if you can sometimes step right and sometimes step left,'” Schumer said. “‘If you have to step in just one direction, you’re boxed.'”
President some rich asshole was reportedly irate over special counsel Robert Mueller being appointed and he took it out on Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
According to a New York Timesreport, the rich asshole raked Sessions over the coals in an Oval Office meeting and told the attorney general he should resign. Evidently, the blame fell to the former Alabama senator because the rich asshole felt if Sessions hadn’t recused himself then the Justice Department would be in charge of the investigation. Since Sessions recused himself, the rich asshole charged him with “disloyalty” and a string of insults were unleashed.
Sessions reportedly told the rich asshole he would resign and sent a letter saying as much to the White House, according to four different sources. Sessions even vented about the humiliating way in which the rich asshole addressed him and called it demeaning. Remarkably similar to the way Gen. John Kelly has described the rich asshole, Sessions said that it was the worst he’s ever been spoken to in his professional life.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President some rich asshole and immigration (all times local):
1:20 p.m.
House Speaker Paul Ryan says there is no agreement on a fix for so-called “Dreamers.”
The Wisconsin Republican tells reporters that after speaking with President some rich asshole, he’s confident the president did not strike a deal with Democratic leaders to resolve the status of immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as kids.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the outlines of a deal after dining Wednesday night with the rich asshole. They said the deal would enshrine protections for younger immigrants and contain border security measures, but not the rich asshole’s long-sought wall.
Ryan says, “The president wasn’t negotiating a deal last night; the president was talking with Democratic leaders to get their perspective.”
Speaker Paul Ryan says in AP interview that deporting people brought to US illegally as children not in America’s interest. (Sept. 13)
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11:52 a.m.
The top Senate Republican says the program to protect young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally should be part of any discussion about immigration, border security and enforcement.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also says Congress is looking forward to getting a legislative proposal from the rich asshole administration. Meanwhile, the White House is insisting that’s up to Congress.
The statement comes amid more confusion over statements and comments from President some rich asshole after his dinner with Democratic leaders Wednesday night.
the rich asshole said Thursday he was “fairly close” to a deal with congressional leaders to preserve protections for young immigrants. He pushed back against the Democratic leaders, who claimed he reached a deal with them on protections for young immigrants. He also said his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border would “come later.”
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11:20 a.m.
President some rich asshole says that, “ultimately,” funding for a border wall with Mexico must be part of any immigration deal. But he says that funding can come at a later date.
the rich asshole tells reporters in Florida that: “We have to have an understanding that, whether it’s in the budget or some other vehicle, in a fairly short period of time, the wall will be funded.”
He says, “Otherwise we’re not doing anything.”
the rich asshole and Democratic leaders talked Wednesday night over dinner about what to do with the hundreds of thousands of young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.
Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer announced they’d reached an agreement with the rich asshole that does not include wall funding. But the White House says that’s premature.
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11:20 a.m.
President some rich asshole says he’s “not looking at citizenship” for young immigrants living in the in U.S. illegally and “not looking at amnesty.”
But the rich asshole tells reporters in Florida that: “We’re looking at allowing people to stay here.”
the rich asshole was referring to the hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who’ve been protected from deportation and given permission to work in the country under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
the rich asshole says he’s been working with both Democrats and Republicans to come up with a solution before a six-month deadline he imposed.
the rich asshole is denying he reached a deal with Democrats on the issue Wednesday night, but says that: “Everybody’s on board.”
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10:55 a.m.
A spokeswoman says President some rich asshole “does not support amnesty,” but may be open to a pathway to citizenship for some people living in the country illegally.
White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters tells reporters traveling with the president to Florida that “the rich asshole administration will not be discussing amnesty.”
But she says the president wants “a responsible path forward” on immigration reform that “could include legal citizenship over a period of time.” She later said that is just one possible example of what Congress might do.
Walters is also repeating the president’s assertion that “no deal” was made on protections for young immigrants during a dinner Wednesday night between the president and Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.
She says they had “a constructive conversation,” but “there was no deal made.”
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10:36 a.m.
President some rich asshole and Democratic leaders have reached an understanding on protections for young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
That’s the word Thursday from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. Speaking on the Senate floor, Schumer said: “We all agreed on a framework. ... We agreed the president would enshrine DACA protections into law ... What remains to be negotiated are the details of border security.”
Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi dined with the rich asshole at the White House on Wednesday night and issued a statement on an agreement.
On Thursday morning, the rich asshole said he’s “fairly close” to reaching a deal with congressional leaders. The president insisted he needs “massive border security.”
the rich asshole spoke after denying assertions by Democratic leaders that they reached an agreement with him on the so-called DACA program.
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8:50 a.m.
President some rich asshole says he’s “fairly close” to reaching a deal with congressional leaders on protections for young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children. But the president says he needs “massive border security.”
the rich asshole spoke Thursday morning — after denying assertions by Democratic leaders that they reached an agreement with him on the so-called DACA program.
In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi insist they agreed, with the rich asshole, to “enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly” and to work out a package on border security — excluding the rich asshole’s planned wall along the U.S. southern border.
the rich asshole told reporters Thursday morning that House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agree with him on DACA.
That’s after the rich asshole tweeted early Thursday that “no deal was made last night” on the issue.
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8:30 a.m.
Democratic leaders in Congress and President some rich asshole can’t seem to agree on just what it is they agreed to at a White House dinner.
Here’s the version from New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and California Rep. Nancy Pelosi: They say there’s an agreement on putting into law an Obama administration program that’s given protection to certain young immigrants. These are immigrants living in the country illegally who were brought here as children to remain in the United States.
They say the rich asshole said he’d encourage the House and Senate to act.
The leaders also say both sides agreed to work out a U.S.-Mexico border security package — but it wouldn’t include the rich asshole’s border wall. They say the rich asshole made clear he’ll pursue that later.
Schumer and Pelosi in a statement that the rich asshole’s tweets Thursday morning denying a deal “are not consistent” with what took place at their dinner.
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6:30 a.m.
President some rich asshole is denying assertions by the two top congressional Democrats that they have an agreement with him that will preserve protections for young immigrants in the U.S. illegally while adding border security without the wall he has coveted.
the rich asshole sent out a series of tweets before daybreak Thursday taking issue with characterizations by Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of talks the group at a White House dinner Wednesday evening.
Schumer and Pelosi said they’d reached an agreement to restore the so-called DACA program in exchange for some additional security enhancements to ward off illegal immigration. But the rich asshole said in a tweet: “No deal was made last night on DACA.”
“Massive border security would have to be agreed to in exchange for consent. Would be subject to vote,” the president said.
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3:40 a.m.
The top House and Senate Democrats say they have reached agreement with President some rich asshole to protect thousands of younger immigrants from deportation and fund some border security enhancements — not including the rich asshole’s coveted border wall.
The agreement represents the latest instance of the rich asshole ditching his own party to make common cause with the opposition. It was announced by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi late Wednesday following a White House dinner that Republican lawmakers weren’t invited to attend. It would enshrine protections for the nearly 800,000 immigrants brought illegally to this country as kids who had benefited from former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which provided temporary work permits and shielded recipients from deportation.
the rich asshole ended the program earlier this month and gave Congress six months to come up with a legislative fix before the statuses of the so-called “Dreamers” begin to expire.
Some rich asshole on Wednesday struck an agreement with House and Senate minority leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) that did not include funding for the president’s famed border wall, according to a statement released by the Democratic leaders.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders quickly insisted “excluding the wall was certainly not agreed to,” but the damage for #MAGA Twitter was done.
Over at Breitbart—the “platform for the alt-right” spearheaded by former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon—the response was swift and not too kind to the one-time nationalist president.
And elsewhere on the Internet, right-wingers expressed a mix of denial, outrage, and—at least on the part of Sean Hannity—blame directed at GOP leaders not named the rich asshole.
President some rich asshole on Thursday encouraged Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) to run for the U.S. Senate seat that is now held by Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.
During a tour of Florida’s damage from Hurricane Irma, the rich asshole took time out to praise Sen. Marco Rubio (R). But Rubio appeared to cringe and grimace slightly when the rich asshole tried to touch his shoulder.
“What do I know?” the rich asshole said, turning to the cameras. “But I hope this man right here, Rick Scott, runs for the Senate.”
While Scott would not oppose the existing GOP senator from Florida, it was unclear if the governor is Rubio’s first choice. Scott suggested during the 2016 election that his millionaire friend, Carlos Beruff, deserved a shot at Rubio’s seat.
President some rich asshole dismissed reports that he’s reached a deal with Democratic lawmakers to protect young immigrants from deportation.
The president reportedly agreed to a legislative solution for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, in exchange for enhanced border security — but the rich asshole tweeted on Thursday morning the deal hadn’t been completed.
“No deal was made last night on DACA,” the rich asshole tweeted. “Massive border security would have to be agreed to in exchange for consent. Would be subject to vote.”
Framework for the deal was sketched out over a dinner hosted by the rich asshole with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — but the president denied reports that funding for the border wall would be excluded.
“The WALL, which is already under construction in the form of new renovation of old and existing fences and walls, will continue to be built,” he tweeted.
Immigration hardliners were furious at that the rich asshole appeared to have broken his campaign promise on DACA, but the president signaled a willingness to allow DACA recipients to remain in the U.S.
“Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military?” the rich asshole tweeted. “Really!”
“They have been in our country for many years through no fault of their own – brought in by parents at young age,” he added. “Plus BIG border security.”
A White House spokesperson said Thursday that President some rich asshole “will not be discussing amnesty” as he negotiates a replacement for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
“As we have said in the past, there will be no amnesty,” White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters told reporters aboard Air Force One, according to The Hill. “Absolutely by no means will this White House discuss amnesty and the president has made it clear how he feels about no amnesty.”
But the spokesperson added that the rich asshole could consider a “responsible path forward in immigration reform” that provides “legal citizenship over a period of time.”
After departing Air Force One, the president told reporters
President some rich asshole may have endangered his presidency and American democracy with his business dealings in Russia — but he has nothing to show for it.
The former real estate developer and reality TV star spent decades cultivating relationships in Russia, but he never actually built anything there, and The Atlantic‘s Julia Ioffe tried to find out why.
What she found, in short, is that the rich asshole isn’t nearly as good a businessman as he likes to brag.
“the rich asshole wants everything and he’s dealing with the Russians, who aren’t stupid,” said one Western real estate investor in Moscow. “If you want everything from the Russians, they’re not going to give it to you. the rich asshole’s way of negotiating is to ask for every fucking thing. The Russians have a different philosophy of negotiation: He who asks is the weak party.”
Other big-name hotel brands have built in Moscow, but they actually run those businesses in addition to licensing their names — which was all the rich asshole offered.
“the rich asshole wants a fee for branding and doesn’t put money in, so most developers’ in Moscow responses are, ‘So what the fuck do we need him for?’” said a person familiar with the licensing negotiations.
some rich asshole Jr. summed up the complex back story by admitting Russia “really is a scary place.”
The younger the rich asshole told a trade publication in 2008, when he revealed “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” that the rich asshole Organization was concerned about the payoffs necessary to do business in Russia, where corruption is rampant and bribes are necessary.
“Moscow is like New York in many ways, just way more corrupt,” said one Western real estate developer in Russia, who asked for anonymity to avoid upsetting his foreign partners. “To pull a building out of the ground, you need so many permits, so many authorizations — the mind reels. And all of it is so corrupt, it’s insane.”
Ioffe, who was born in Moscow and came to the U.S. with her parents at 7, said the rich asshole Organization would have needed a capable and connected local partner to obtain all the necessary permits.
the rich asshole worked with Aras Agalarov — whose son was involved in arranging the campaign meeting between the rich asshole Jr. and a Russian lawyer — in 2013, but that deal fell apart over a scandal in Kyrgyzstan and amid Russian economic woes.
The future president instead relied on Felix Sater, a Russian-American convicted felon with mob ties who also worked as an FBI informant.
Sater started traveling to Moscow on the rich asshole’s behalf in 2004, and three years later also started advising the self-described some rich asshole of Russia, Sergei Polonsky, over the objections of the developer’s lieutenants.
“I would never hire somebody like that,” said Alexey Kunitsin, who was then chairman of the board at Polonsky’s company. “You can’t trust him in any way, not in a professional setting, not in a personal setting — you could see it very clearly. He was telling constant crazy stories, wild fantasies about all the people he knew. He was not a balanced dude. He’s very emotional and gets into conflicts very easily.”
Sater gained a reputation as a “bullshitter” and raised suspicions with his colorful tales of profligate spending, and Moscow developers didn’t trust him or take him seriously.
Those developers also didn’t trust the rich asshole, who was an outsider without the necessary political protection to do business in Moscow.
Sater seems to have hoped that might change after the rich asshole announced his presidential campaign, according to emails recently obtained by the New York Timesthat show him bragging to the rich asshole lawyer Michael Cohen that he had lined up financing for the rich asshole Tower from VTB — a bank under U.S. sanctions.
“I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected,” Sater said in one email, and the rich asshole signed a non-binding letter of attempt in fall 2015 to pursue the project.
However, that deal too went nowhere because Sater lacked the right connections and because Russia’s economy was still staggering under U.S. sanctions imposed the year before.
Cohen tried to revive the project in 2016 by trying to contact the players Sater had bragged about but instead sent an email to a top Putin lieutenant using his general email listed on the Kremlin website, and the official declined to respond.
Moscow developers described Cohen’s action as more of a rookie mistake than evidence of high-level contacts — and they told The Atlantic it shows why the rich asshole never got anything built in Russia.
“That is like the stupidest, most absurd thing ever,” said one Western real estate developer. “The Russians that (the rich asshole) associates with, I would never do business with. I’ve been involved with Russia for 25 years.”
The developer offered a withering criticism of the rich asshole’s business acumen, given his famous name that’s become synonymous with a certain type of luxury.
“A genuine developer could’ve done a lot with that brand,” the developer said.
Was it legal for Ronald Reagan to pardon George Steinbrenner? Was it legal for Richard Nixon to pardon Jimmy Hoffa? Was it legal for Bill Clinton to pardon Patty Hearst? Yes, yes and yes.
Yet presidential pardon power is vast, but not limitless. As the Department of Justice makes crystal clear, the presidential pardon power does not extend to crimes that violate the laws of any of the fifty states.
According to the US Constitution, “The president… shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” Like so much of the Constitution, the framers were sparing in the language that courts must now interpret.
One of the few Supreme Court cases on pardons is Burdick v. United States. In Burdick, the court considered the case of an editor of the New York Tribune newspaper (Burdick) who would not name his source for a story about fraud at the city’s US Custom House. In 1914, Burdick was offered a pardon by President Woodrow Wilson. He refused to accept the pardon and was sent to prison for contempt.
The question in the Burdick case was the effect of the unaccepted presidential pardon. The US Supreme Court in Burdick indicated that presidential pardons can be rejected: “A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered, and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him.” The court ultimately concluded: “it was Burdick’s right to refuse [the pardon]…”
Burdick also clarifies that to accept a pardon is to accept guilt for the crime for which one is being pardoned. As the high court said, “a pardon… carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it.” The end result of the case was the US Supreme Court ordered the lower court “to dismiss the proceedings in contempt, and discharge Burdick from custody.”
The Department of Justice keeps a running tally of presidential pardons going back to 1900. The US president who granted the most pardons (2,819) was Franklin D. Roosevelt, which makes sense as he was the longest serving president from his inaugural on March 4, 1933, to the day he died in office on April 12, 1945. One of the more interesting uses of the power was Jimmy Carter’s blanket pardon for draft dodgers of the Vietnam War, issued the day after he was sworn in.
So far, President the rich asshole has issued just one controversial pardon: that of the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, Joe Arpaio, for his criminal contempt of court conviction. Arpaio continued to racially profile Latinos after a federal judge ordered him to stop.
One of the ways the Arpaio pardon violates established norms is that typically a person must wait for at least five years after conviction before filing a pardon application. There was no five-year period for Arpaio; he hasn’t even been sentenced yet. The judge in the case still wants to hear from federal prosecutors on October 4 about whether to grant Arpaio’s request to overturn her finding of guilt. This would be inconsistent with the Burdick case, which makes accepting a pardon tantamount to admitting guilt of the underlying crime.
President the rich asshole has inquired about his power to pardon his family, his business associates and even himself. Most legal scholars think the president cannot pardon himself — in essence because a pardon is like a marriage: it takes two people. Just as one cannot marry oneself, neither can one pardon oneself — although there are outliers like former federal judge Richard Posner, who claim a president can.
A memo by the Office of Legal Counsel informed President Nixon that he could not pardon himself because he could not be a judge in his own case. If this question is ever litigated to the Roberts Supreme Court, the court might look to the more recent Caperton v. Massey case, where the Supreme Court reiterated once again, “no man can be a judge in his own case…” Caperton dealt with actual judges and not pardons, but it is a basic tenet of the rule of law that no one is above the law, even the president.
Other than an impeachment case or a self-pardon, the power of a president to pardon is extremely broad. There is nothing in the constitution, for example, that would prevent a pardon of all the rich asshole children for federal crimes. (Not that we think Barron and Tiffany have any liability at present. The other three — Eric, Don Jr. and Ivanka — potentially are another story.) After all, Bill Clinton pardoned his brother Roger.
Special counsel Robert Mueller surely knows that some rich asshole may try to pardon lots of his associates, individuals Mueller may be investigating for possible crimes during the 2016 election or other misdeeds. Which is why it is so significant that there are press reports that Mueller is coordinating with New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Again, the president’s pardoning power is limited to “offences against the United States.” In other words, President the rich asshole can only pardon federal crimes. He has no power to pardon state crimes.
Frequently, criminal activity will run afoul of both state and federal law. For example, if a tax return is fraudulent and is filed with both the IRS and a state taxing authority, it could violate both federal and state law. A presidential pardon would only apply to the federal crimes. The state crimes are the purview of the relevant governor.
State attorneys general have enormous overlapping jurisdiction with federal prosecutors. Recall when New York AG Eliot Spitzer earned the nickname “the sheriff of Wall Street?” AG Spitzer wasn’t using the federal banking laws. Rather he was using a New York State law known as the Martin Act to prosecute alleged violations by banks located in New York.
What’s more, prosecuting state and federal crimes does not raise double jeopardy concerns because of another Supreme Court case known as Bartkus v. Illinois (1959). The Bartkus case indicates — under the “dual sovereignty” doctrine — that the double jeopardy clause of the US Constitution does not prohibit successive federal and state prosecutions for the same conduct. And the highest New York State court agreed in 2007 in Polito v. Walsh that the prohibition against double jeopardy for bringing a New York state criminal case does not apply when a federal prosecution has been terminated.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has jurisdiction over violations of any state laws that happened in the rich asshole Tower. He also has jurisdiction over whatever was happening at the the rich asshole SoHo hotel in downtown Manhattan, including the alleged legally problematic actions of one Felix Sater. If Schneiderman successfully prosecutes the rich asshole family members or members of the rich asshole campaign or the rich asshole business partners, President the rich asshole can tweet and fume all he wants. He won’t have the power to pardon them for violations of state laws.
Posted with permission from Tribune Content Agency
WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday unveiled his own plan to overhaul the nation's tax code with only GOP votes — while the White House courted Democrats and House Republicans prepared to write their own plan.
Cruz, R-Texas, an influential voice among hardcore conservatives, pitched his appeal largely to staunch supporters who have long fought to simply the tax code and create a single individual tax rate.
He made his case in a speech to tax experts and analysts at a forum a few blocks from the Capitol. But at the Capitol and White House, Republican leaders were in serious discussions over the shape of their own plan. Without Cruz.
His proposal was short on details. Though he said he supported a flat individual tax rate, he did not offer a specific rate. Nor did he discuss how much revenue the plan could generate.
Key to Cruz's proposal, which he conceded Wednesday won't garner support from Democrats, is a legislative maneuver that would have the Senate limit debate with 51 votes instead of the usual 60. That would allow Republicans to do it all on their own, as they control 52 of the chamber's 100 seats.
"We are facing unprecedented Democratic filibusters on virtually any meaningful legislation. So as a practical matter, it's highly unlikely we are going to see a significant number of Democrats supporting tax reform," said Cruz. That assessment is different from White House thinking.
Pointing to the GOP-controlled Congress' failure to repeal and replace Obamacare, White House legislative affairs director Marc Short said Tuesday that it was no longer safe to assume Republicans alone could deliver the votes for a tax overhaul.
"We don't feel like we can assume we can get tax reform done strictly on a partisan basis, so it would be wise for us ... to try and reach out and earn the support from Democrats as well," he told a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.
Trump met with senators from both parties Tuesday night, not including Cruz, to talk tax reform at the White House. He did the same with a group of lawmakers from both parties Wednesday.
At the same time, House Republicans said they would produce an outline of a tax plan by the end of the month.
"I would love to have the Democrats supporting and working with us in a constructive way on tax reform, but we're going to do it no matter what," Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters.
Some House conservatives are still fuming about the deal the White House made with Senate Democratic leaders last week to link hurricane aid with a three-month extension of the debt ceiling and government funding. Ninety House Republicans opposed the agreement, which passed overwhelmingly with support from lawmakers in both parties.
Asked whether conservatives should be concerned about a tax deal, Trump said Wednesday that any negotiation would uphold conservative principles, or Democrats would be cut out.
"I think that if we can do things in a bipartisan manner, that will be great," said Trump. "Now, it might not work out, in which case, we'll try and do them without."
Cruz, who framed much of his presidential campaign around the threat that Trump would cut deals with Democrats, has been meeting with House members about his tax plan.
His office declined to specify whether he was singling out conservatives, but said he was meeting with "everyone and anyone who is willing to sit down and talk tax reform."
Cruz has his own ideas. He said that if Congress would not buy his flat individual tax rate he could envision going to three rates instead of the current seven.
He proposed a corporate tax rate of 15 percent to 20 percent, and an end to the estate tax and alternative minimum tax. Trump has suggested a 15 percent corporate rate. Ryan has suggested a 20 percent to 25 percent rate.
The top corporate rate, which combines federal, state and local taxes, was about 39 percent last year.
In a panel discussion after Cruz spoke, conservative tax policy experts agreed with his assessment on using Republican votes.
"It's hard to imagine (Senate Democrats) voting for anything that looks anything like a tax reform, even broadly under the most loose definition," said Gordon Gray, director of fiscal policy at the American Action Forum. He supported Cruz's plan to move tax reform with 51 Senate votes.
On Capitol Hill, not all conservatives agreed with that assessment.
Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., who chairs the conservative House Republican Study Committee, said he wasn't among the House members Cruz had met with, and lauded the president's outreach.
The U.S. presidency is the most powerful office in the world, but it is set up to fail. And the power is the problem. Beginning as a small and uncertain position within a large and sprawling democracy, the presidency has grown over two centuries into a towering central command for global decisions about war, economy, and justice. The president can bomb more places, spend more money, and influence more people than any other figure in history. His reach is almost boundless.
Reach does not promote desired results. Each major president has changed the world, but none has changed it as he liked. Often just the opposite. Rising power elicits demands on that power, at home and abroad, that exceed capabilities. Rising power also inspires resistance, from jealous friends as much as determined adversaries. Dominance motivates mounting commitments, exaggerated promises, and widening distractions – “mission creep,” in its many infectious forms.
Despite their dominance, modern presidents have rarely achieved what they wanted because they have consistently overcommitted, over-promised, and overreached. They have run in too many directions at once. They have tried to achieve success too fast. They have departed from their priorities. And they have become too preoccupied with managing crises, rather than leading the country in desired directions.
Extraordinary power has pushed even the most ambitious presidents to become largely reactive – racing to put out the latest fire, rather than focusing on the most important goals. The crises caused by small and distant actors have frequently defined the presidents. The time and resources spent on crises have diminished the attention to matters with much greater significance for the nation as a whole. Presidents frequently lose control of their agendas because they are too busy deploying their power flagrantly, rather than targeting it selectively.
Unmatched capabilities and ambitions encourage undisciplined decision-making, followed by stubborn efforts to make good on poor choices. These are the “sunk costs” that hang over the heads of powerful leaders determined to make sure nothing sinks, except their own presidencies. As much as they try, presidents cannot redeem the past nor control the present. Their most effective use of power is investing in future changes defined around a limited set of national economic, social, and military priorities. Priorities matter most for successful leaders, but presidents forget them in the ever-denser fog of White House decision-making.
Thomas Jefferson anticipated these circumstances two centuries ago. Although he valued virtue and strength in leaders, Jefferson recognized that these qualities were potential sources of despotism as much as democracy. The virtuous and the strong often try to do too much, and they adopt tyrannical practices in pursuit of worthy, now corrupted, purposes. Machiavelli’s prince, who promotes the public good through ruthless policies, was a warning against centralized power run amok.
Like other founders steeped in the history of empires, Jefferson wanted to insure that the United States remained a republic with restrained, modest, and cautious leaders. He envisioned a president who embodied wisdom above all – a philosopher president more than a warrior president or a businessman president. For Jefferson, the essential qualities of leadership came from the intellect of the man who occupied the office.
The checks and balances in the U.S. Constitution divided power to prevent presidential tyranny, but they did not guarantee the necessary intellect, prudence, or personal restraint of the people in charge. Fragmented authority could be just as flagrant and misguided as centralized authority, and it could franchise its despotism in multiplying offices and agencies with similar effects to the dictatorial prince. A powerful democracy ultimately relied upon the wisdom and self-denial of its leaders, not constitutional barriers, according to Jefferson. Democratic leaders had to remain introspective and ascetic as their country grew more dynamic and prosperous.
Writing on the eve of the country’s first burst of expansion, Jefferson warned that the nation’s leaders may one day “shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble.” Restrained use of power and disciplined focus on the national interest were the only antidotes to excess, despotism, and decline. “I hope our wisdom will grow with our power,” Jefferson wrote, “and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”
Jefferson’s heirs did not heed his words. By the mid-twentieth century the rapid growth of American power made frequent misuse unavoidable, and effective leadership nearly unattainable. The United States strayed from its values more than any elected president could correct, despite repeated public hopes for a savior. Leaders pursued goals – for wealth, influence, and security – that undermined the democracy they aimed to preserve.
The widening gap between power and values produced President some rich asshole, elected to promote raw power above all. He is the final fall of the founders’ presidency – the absolute antithesis of what they expected for the office. President the rich asshole was not inevitable, but the rise and fall of America’s highest office had a historical logic that explains the current moment, and how we might move forward.
Jeremi Suri is a professor in the Department of History and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs. He has written or edited eight books on American politics and foreign policy, including The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office, which will be published September 12.
Before some rich asshole became president, his son-in-law Jared Kushner planned to turn the infamously-named 666 Fifth Avenue, a large old building he owns in Manhattan, into an impeccably-designed skyscraper twice as tall.
Now, the Washington Post reports, more than a quarter of the building’s offices are empty — all thanks to his relationship to the president.
According to the Post, multiple foreign investors Kushner and his associates were courting pulled out due to fears of conflicts of interest, leaving the midtown Manhattan monstrosity — and the family business Kushner left for the White House — high and dry.
“With one-fourth of [the building’s] offices empty, lease revenue does not cover monthly interest payments, according to lending documents,” the Post report. “A $1.2 billion mortgage, with escalating interest rates, comes due in 18 months. A ratings agency has classified a $115 million portion of the loan as ‘troubled,’ and company officials decline to say whether it will be fully repaid.”
As the Post notes, occupancy at 666 Fifth Ave. has steadily declined since Kushner and his father Charles bought the building for $1.8 billion in 2007 (the year before the stock market crashed). It now is only 70 percent full, and many of its main tenants, including Citibank and the Phillips Nizer law firm, are all but vacating the property. Read the entire report about the sordid history of Kushner Companies’ purchase, holding and financing of 666 Fifth Ave via the Post
WATCH: APPLAUSE ERUPTS IN SENATE AFTER GOP COMMITTEE CHAIR TELLS THE RICH ASSHOLE TO F*CK OFF BY VOTING FOR HEALTH FUNDING INCREASE
Posted by Stephen D. Foster Jr. on 13 Sep 2017
Republicans are clearly starting to revolt against some rich asshole.
the rich asshole’s budget proposes slashing funds for multiple government programs and agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an organization dedicated to public health research that has benefited the American people for over a century.
At a time when the public health is threatened like never before, the scientific research conducted by the 27 separate institutes that make up NIH is needed more than ever.
For example, NIH is responsible for the creation of several vaccines which prevent hepatitis, influenza, and HPV.
Treatments for cancer, heart disease, and even Ebola have developed because of the work of and support from NIH.
If anything, NIH needs a budget increase because it has struggled over the last decade to keep up with inflation because the agency’s budget has remained flat or has been cut mostly due to Republican opposition to science.
But that may have just come to an end last week when Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Lamar Alexander cast the decisive vote to increase the NIH budget by $2 billion.
On Thursday, the Tennessee Republican was forced to step away from a separate healthcare hearing to cast a vote held by the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee.
The vote was critical for the public health. the rich asshole, of course, wanted the NIH budget to be cut. But Alexander gave the rich asshole the middle finger instead by casting his vote in favor of raising the NIH budget to $36.1 billion.
After voting, Alexander returned to the hearing and explained his brief absence.
I apologize. I had to step out and vote. I’m glad I did because for the third consecutive year we recommended to the Senate a $2 billion increase appropriations for the National Institutes of Health. That doesn’t make many headlines. But it’s very important.”
The members of the committee and those in attendance rewarded Alexander with a round of applause that made him feel really good about doing the right thing despite what the rich asshole wanted.
“Well, that was good,” a smiling Alexander remarked. “That doesn’t happen much.”
Here’s the video via YouTube.
While the rich asshole and many other Republicans are trying to gut the agencies that protect the public health, at least we know that Senator Lamar Alexander is not one of them.
Now we just have to wait for the rich asshole to throw a temper tantrum about it.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The rich asshole administration has engaged in an unconstitutional practice of searching without a warrant the phones and laptops of Americans who are stopped at the border, a lawsuit filed on Wednesday alleged.
Ten U.S. citizens and one lawful permanent resident sued the Department of Homeland Security in federal court, saying the searches and prolonged confiscation of their electronic devices violate privacy and free speech protections of the U.S. Constitution.
DHS could not be immediately reached for comment.
The lawsuit comes as the number of searches of electronic devices has surged in recent years, alarming civil rights advocates.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reported in April that searches increased from 8,500 in the fiscal year 2015 to about 19,000 in the fiscal year 2016. The agency has conducted nearly 15,000 in the first half of the fiscal year 2017.
The suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, is being brought by travelers including a military veteran, a NASA engineer, two journalists and a computer programmer. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, who are representing the travelers, said that several of the plaintiffs are Muslim or minorities.
Suhaib Allababidi, a U.S. citizen who lives in Texas and a plaintiff in the case, said in an interview that he was stopped by Customs and Border Patrol on Jan. 21 at the Dallas airport after returning from a business trip to Dubai.
Allababidi said he declined to unlock his personal phone for the officers after allowing them to search his separate business phone.
The officers confiscated both his phones, Allababidi said and returned his business phone to him two months later. The government has still not returned his personal phone after more than seven months, he said.
“You are left in the dark with no answers,” Allababidi said. “Will I get my phone back, did I do anything wrong? ... They took my phone, and that’s all I know.”
Generally, U.S. law enforcement is required to obtain a warrant before it can search an American’s electronic devices.
But a so-called border search exception allows federal authorities to conduct searches within 100 miles (160 km) of a U.S. border without a warrant.
In April, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden and Republican Senator Rand Paul introduced legislation that would require a warrant before federal agents search devices at the border that belong to a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, except in some emergency circumstances.
Ferguson
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