January 21st, - January 22nd, 2017. 433-434 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no.45, and 363-364 days since the Jan 20th inauguration.
Morning Joe explains why shutdown chaos proves the rich asshole’s staff believe he’s a ‘blubbery old fool’
Joe Scarborough (MSNBC)
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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough blamed President some rich asshole’s mental instability for the failure of a bipartisan deal to keep the government open.
According to a New York Times report on the negotiations, the president reached an agreement with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) but then let his staff override his decision.
“The president had a Chinese dinner with Democrats, talked once again about wanting to extend legal status to Dreamers, staff members quickly ran behind him again like he’s so bumpkin, some idiot who doesn’t know what he wants to do, rushed behind him, killed the deal again,” Scarborough said.
The “Morning Joe” host said the rich asshole had consistently signaled support for DACA recipients, but his aides and congressional Republicans kept killing any deal that involved extending their legal protections.
“The president this time kept staff members out of the room because they treat him like he’s just a fool, like he’s just an idiot, like he’s a stupid, old, blubbery old man who doesn’t know what he’s doing, like he’s the weakest leader on the planet,” Scarborough said.
He continued: “So some rich asshole said, ‘I’m just going to have Chuck Schumer come in and we’re going to talk one-on-one, and I’m not going to let these staff members treat me like I have pre-dementia, even though they all run around saying I have pr-dementia. I’ve got a doctor who says I don’t have pre-dementia, maybe I don’t have pre-dementia. I’ll do this myself.'”
But once again, the president was overruled by his staff — and Republicans are preventing other possible compromises from reaching a floor vote.
“The Republicans are stopping every one of these votes because they want to make a point, but they’re not exactly sure what point they want to make because we have a president of the United States that is being led around by his staff who obviously think that he’s not fit to be president of the United States, because he makes deals and they break them,” Scarborough said. “So that’s where we are this morning.”
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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough blamed President some rich asshole’s mental instability for the failure of a bipartisan deal to keep the government open.
According to a New York Times report on the negotiations, the president reached an agreement with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) but then let his staff override his decision.
“The president had a Chinese dinner with Democrats, talked once again about wanting to extend legal status to Dreamers, staff members quickly ran behind him again like he’s so bumpkin, some idiot who doesn’t know what he wants to do, rushed behind him, killed the deal again,” Scarborough said.
The “Morning Joe” host said the rich asshole had consistently signaled support for DACA recipients, but his aides and congressional Republicans kept killing any deal that involved extending their legal protections.
“The president this time kept staff members out of the room because they treat him like he’s just a fool, like he’s just an idiot, like he’s a stupid, old, blubbery old man who doesn’t know what he’s doing, like he’s the weakest leader on the planet,” Scarborough said.
He continued: “So some rich asshole said, ‘I’m just going to have Chuck Schumer come in and we’re going to talk one-on-one, and I’m not going to let these staff members treat me like I have pre-dementia, even though they all run around saying I have pr-dementia. I’ve got a doctor who says I don’t have pre-dementia, maybe I don’t have pre-dementia. I’ll do this myself.'”
But once again, the president was overruled by his staff — and Republicans are preventing other possible compromises from reaching a floor vote.
“The Republicans are stopping every one of these votes because they want to make a point, but they’re not exactly sure what point they want to make because we have a president of the United States that is being led around by his staff who obviously think that he’s not fit to be president of the United States, because he makes deals and they break them,” Scarborough said. “So that’s where we are this morning.”
NY Governor Tells the rich asshole To F*ck Off, Re-Opens Statue Of Liberty Despite Shutdown
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday that the rich asshole and Republicans can go f*ck themselves and that despite the shutdown, the Statue of Liberty will be open.
“New York State will reopen the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island,” Cuomo announced via Twitter. “We will not stand by as this symbol of freedom and opportunity goes dark.”
“Shutting down the park jeopardizes an economic driver for the State of New York,” Cuomo said, adding that the “park is a symbol of New York and our values.”
“Her message has never been as important as it is today,” Cuomo concluded — a reference to the rich asshole’s effort to prevent people from “shithole countries” (anywhere with a lot of darker-skinned people) from entering the United States while demanding more immigrants from white-majority countries like “Norway.”
New York State will reopen the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We will not stand by as this symbol of freedom and opportunity goes dark. pic.twitter.com/s73nTc8ipK
This is a clear message to some rich asshole and his allies that their politically-motivated refusal to keep the government open and their demand that Democrats choose between helping poor children through the CHIP program, which Republicans allowed to expire so they could use it as a bargaining chip, and providing some relief for people who were brought to the United States illegally as kids and had no choice in the matter.
Republicans could do the right thing and open the government at any moment. Simply put, they control every branch of the government and we are at their mercy.
It’s good to see Governor Cuomo take a stand against the Right’s continual attacks on our nation.
BY MALLORY SHELBOURNE - 01/22/18 07:48 AM EST
President the rich asshole has recently expressed his willingness to reach a deal with Democratic lawmakers on recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but two key White House aides have argued that an agreement requires harsher immigration rules, The New York Times reported.
According to the report, chief of staff John Kelly and senior policy advisor Stephen Miller have pushed for a tougher immigration policy, as lawmakers continue negotiations over a bill to fund the government. DACA, an Obama-era program that shields immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children, was central to those talks, which did not result in an agreement to stop government shutdown that now stretches into its third day.
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham has criticized Miller throughout the negotiations, with the South Carolina lawmaker referring to the rich asshole aide as an “outlier.”
“His heart is right on this issue; I think he’s got a good understanding of what will sell, and every time we have a proposal, it is only yanked back by staff members,” Graham said Sunday, referring to the rich asshole.
“As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating immigration, we are going nowhere. He’s been an outlier for years,” Graham added
Center for Immigration Studies executive director Mark Krikorian told the Times that the president “seems to make commitments that he is not going to keep.”
“His inclinations are hawkish on immigration, but he seems to like to be agreeable to people and nod his head when he’s at a meeting and people are saying things, and try to make a deal,” Krikorian told the newspaper.
the rich asshole has also previously said that his proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border "must be part of any DACA approval."
Releasing this picture got a Department of Energy photographer fired. He doesn’t regret it.
Simon Edelman leaked a photo of coal baron Robert Murray's "action plan."
A Department of Energy photographer who was fired after releasing photos he took of a meeting between Energy Secretary Rick Perry and a prominent coal executive wants federal authorities to open a criminal investigation into what he calls “public corruption” between Perry and the industry official.
At the meeting, photographer Simon Edelman said Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray asked Perry for policy changes that would directly benefit his coal company and the executive’s personal financial position. The reason to release the photos “was to show the evidence of corruption that was taking place,” Edelman told ThinkProgress.
On December 6, 2017, In These Times, a left-leaning news magazine, published photos of the March 29, 2017, meeting at DOE’s headquarters in Washington. The photographs show a Murray proposal getting presented to Perry that would alter federal policies to favor coal plants, as a way to increase “grid reliability,” reporter Kate Aronoff wrote in the initial article that contained the photos.
As soon as the photos were published, questions arose about how In These Times obtained them. The mystery was solved when the New York Times published an article last week that explained Edelman, who held the title of chief creative officer at DOE, had provided In These Times, as well as the Washington Post, with copies of the photos.
In an interview, Edelman said he wanted to make the photos available to the public before federal energy regulators voted on an electric grid reliability and resiliency rule that would benefit Murray Energy and other coal companies. The proposal would have provided guaranteed profits to the coal and nuclear industries. As it turned out, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted unanimously on January 8 to reject the plan.
“These allegations are blatantly false. Indeed, a word-for-word comparison of the Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule and Mr. Murray’s Action Plan reveals that they only have two words in common,” Murray Energy spokesperson Gary Broadbent told ThinkProgress in an emailed statement.
The Energy Department had not responded to a request for comment at the time of this article’s publication.
A complaint prepared by John Napier Tye, co-founder of Whistleblower Aid, a new legal organization for government and private sector whistleblowers, explained that a statement made by Murray in November motivated Edelman to share the photos — what Edelman classifies as “public domain photographic evidence” — with the public.
In an interview with E&E News, Murray denied any involvement with Perry’s grid resiliency pricing rule. “I had nothing to do with it,” Murray said. “It was Mr. Murray’s lying that motivated Simon Edelman to share his public domain evidence with the American people,” the whistleblower complaint reads.
Broadbent reiterated the statements made by Murray to E&E News. “Mr. Murray has consistently stated that he had no prior notice of this rulemaking and was not involved in drafting the Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule. Any allegation otherwise is an absolute lie,” he said.
For the March 29 meeting, Edelman was assigned to take pictures of Perry and Murray. Edelman, who stayed in the room for about 15 minutes, said it was unlike any other meeting he had photographed at DOE, including events attended by former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Perry’s predecessor. “This was not an everyday meeting that happens all the time,” he said. “This was different because they knew each other and they knew each other well. Perry gave him that hug. And then Murray got right down to business and gave him the action plan.”
Edelman said he didn’t know who Murray was at the time. But he still felt something was off. “When I heard them talking about the plan and then I saw what was on the desk, my instinct was to take the photo of them,” he said.
On the meeting room table was a document dated March 23, 2017, with Murray’s name at the top. The document, addressed to Perry, stated that an “action plan” was enclosed to achieve reliable and low-cost electricity and assist with the survival of the nation’s coal industry, according to Edelman’s photo.
Along with Perry and Murray, Andrew Wheeler, a lobbyist for Murray Energy at the time, was in attendance at the meeting, according to Edelman. Wheeler is still awaiting confirmation to be deputy administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency. At his confirmation hearing in November, Wheeler admitted he viewed Murray’s plan to roll back environmental regulations at the meeting with Perry.
The “Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule,” proposed by the DOE on September 28, would have essentially boosted revenue for coal and nuclear power plants. The rule called for subsidies for power plants that keep at least 90 days worth of fuel stored on site — something the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy found would “unarguably increase costs to consumers” by propping up power plants that aren’t economically viable at consumer expense.
Murray’s political contributions to both the rich asshole and Perry, according to Edelman, and Perry’s attempt to get federal regulators to implement a plan that would benefit Murray Energy represented an example of “quid pro quo.” Murray’s action plan “very closely mirrored the proposal that was pushed forward” by the Energy Department, he said.
During his failed presidential run in 2012, Perry’s campaign reportedly received a six-figure contribution from Murray and his employees. Murray also was a major supporter of the rich asshole’s presidential run in 2016. He donated $300,000 to the rich asshole’s inauguration. Soon after the rich asshole took office, Murray presented the president with a wish list of environmental rollbacks. The action plan presented to Perry at the March 29 meeting was a separate document, but included many of the same requests in the wish list, the New York Times reported in a January 9 article.
Broadbent said he has not seen a copy of the whistleblower complaint and therefore is unable to comment on it. “There is no doubt, however, that President the rich asshole and his administration has always supported the United States coal industry,” he said. “Murray Energy Corporation chose to support President the rich asshole, Secretary Perry, and like-minded Republicans, who have been staunch defenders of the United States coal industry, and the jobs and family livelihoods that depend on it, and low-cost, reliable, fuel secure electricity for all Americans.”
Edelman’s release of the photos came at a major cost to his career. The day after In These Times published the photos, he was put on administrative leave. The Energy Department seized personal items, including thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment, from his workspace. On December 27, he was officially fired from his position, although Edelman said the department still has not provided an official reason for his termination.
“The job was a great job. I was actually enjoying my work in this administration more than the previous one,” said Edelman, who emphasized that none of the photos were classified. In his job, Edelman did not have a security clearance and was not permitted to enter secure areas at the department.
Rick Perry’s plan to make taxpayers bail out coal and nuclear rejected by federal agency
Rick Perry’s plan to make taxpayers bail out coal and nuclear rejected by federal agency
Tye, Edelman’s lawyer, said he sent a settlement proposal to DOE that contained a provision stating Edelman would not be prosecuted for anything during his time of employment at the department. DOE said it could not agree to that provision, Tye said. “The Department of Energy has never stated why he was fired or why they seized his stuff. As a lawyer, my perception is they know what they did was illegal. They don’t have a legal reason. And they want to avoid stating an illegal reason,” he said.
The whistleblower complaint includes a request for several actions, including reinstating Edelman to his job at DOE. The complaint also calls on DOE to open an internal ethics investigation against Perry and department staff, an FBI criminal investigation into Perry and Murray for “public corruption,” and an independent investigation into corruption and insider dealing at the Energy Department.
In response to Edelman’s firing, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said in a statement to the New York Times that federal employees should not be fired for doing their jobs. “The Department of Energy must investigate as to why Mr. Edelman was fired,” Sanders said.
Edelman said that the offices of Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) have reached out to him to talk about the case. After reading the New York Times article, Whitehouse’s staff wanted to meet with Edelman to get more information about what took place at the March 29 meeting between Perry and Murray.
“I’m definitely proud of what I did. I know that I did the right thing,” Edelman said. “I just hope that more people take this as inspiration that they can also speak up and blow the whistle because it’s an important part of democracy.”
Shutdown grinds into workweek after Senate fails to clinch deal
BY JORDAIN CARNEY, MELANIE ZANONA AND CRISTINA MARCOS - 01/21/18 11:55 PM EST
The shutdown is barreling into the workweek after senators failed late Sunday to clinch a deal to reopen the government.
The impact of the closure is set to dramatically increase starting Monday. Hundreds of thousands of government employees face possible furloughs, some federal functions could cease and it remains to be seen whether public museums and tourist attractions will remain open.
“It gets a lot more real when the week starts,” Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) told reporters. “The longer these things drag on, the harder it gets.”
But there is optimism that the shutdown, now entering its third day, could end soon.
The Senate at noon on Monday is set to take a procedural vote on a government funding bill that would last for roughly three weeks, until Feb. 8.
Democrats are mulling whether to support that bill after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) offered his assurances late Sunday that the chamber would take up immigration legislation, regardless of whether the issue is addressed in a yearlong funding package.
"Should these issues not be resolved by the time the funding bill before us expires on Feb. 8, 2018, assuming the government remains open, it would be my intention to proceed to legislation that would address DACA, border security and related issues," McConnell said on Sunday night, referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
DACA, an Obama-era program that allows certain immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally as children to work and go to school in U.S., has been at the center of the shutdown talks. President the rich asshole is ending the program, arguing the Obama administration did not have the authority to create it.
McConnell's comments appeared to reflect the work of a bipartisan group of senators that met on Sunday to discuss a possible path to getting 60 votes for a government funding bill.
Still, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) cautioned that a deal was not yet done.
"We have had several conversations, talks will continue, but we have yet to reach an agreement on a path forward that would be acceptable for both sides," Schumer said after he blocked a GOP effort to set up a vote for Sunday night on the three-week funding bill.
For now, it’s up to the rich asshole administration to begin carrying out the first full-scale shutdown of the government since 2013.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney is encouraging federal agencies to use available funds to keep operating as a way to keep more programs running as usual.
And the administration is also taking steps to minimize the impact by leaving parks or other federal functions open that were shuttered during the 2013 closure.
Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) predicted the full-fledged shutdown wouldn't be as dramatic as it was during the Obama administration.
"I think the impact would be much less and much different than ’13 when President Obama deliberately tried to inconvenience the American public," Collins said.
"Unlike ’13, when Obama weaponized the shutdown, President the rich asshole is not doing that. The World War II memorial’s open, the [National] Mall is open."
The shutdown was barely noticeable over the weekend, when most public-facing government offices are closed.
The situation grows more complicated on Monday morning, when hundreds of thousands of federal workers have to figure out whether to report to work.
About half of the Department of Health and Human Services's staff will be furloughed. The Food and Drug Administration will have to pause activities like food safety inspections.
Military operations will continue and “essential” civilian personnel at the Defense Department will continue working, but they won’t get paid until the shutdown is over.
Americans will also still be able to visit national parks, unlike in 2013, and the Smithsonian museums and National Zoo are expected to open on Monday. They will give updates on their status beyond that “as they know.”
But many National Park Service staffers will be furloughed, meaning that services like trash removal and restroom cleaning will be on hold.
Many grants and permits requiring federal action would stall, while passport processing could start to wind down.
Senators often invoked the worst aspects of the shutdown as they worked through the weekend, raising hopes that they would be able to lock down a deal on Sunday.
“I think everybody who I’ve talked to thinks it’s important to get government open as quickly as possible. We would have liked to do that Friday. We would have liked to do that Saturday. We would like to do that today,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) told reporters.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) added that “one of the things we learned from the last shutdown is as things go on positions harden. ... Resolution gets more difficult the longer we wait.”
But a bipartisan push for a Sunday night deal ultimately fell short, with Schumer and McConnell unable to nail down an agreement.
The two parties engaged in an intense messaging war all weekend over who was to blame for the shutdown, which began when the majority of Democrats and some Republicans rejected a short-term funding bill that did not address DACA or government spending caps.
Democrats blamed the rich asshole for the lack of a deal, with Schumer quipping that negotiating with the president is “like negotiating with Jell-O.”
Republicans, meanwhile, accused Democrats of hypocritically holding the country hostage to please their liberal base.
Given the tensions, it’s not clear whether there will be 60 votes to end debate on the three-week funding bill, either.
Five Democrats supported the mid-February funding bill that the Senate easily rejected last week, and it’s possible that some other Democrats — particularly red-state Democrats up for reelection this year — could flip and support the new package.
A spokesman for Schumer declined to discuss Democrats’ remaining reservations about the deal offered by McConnell, saying they wouldn’t negotiate through the press.
Both Senate caucuses are expected to meet on Monday. And there are some signs of progress that indicated McConnell is closer to having 60 votes by the new noon deadline.
A bipartisan group, which includes nearly a dozen Democrats, have been discussing a potential solution and pitching their ideas to leadership. They will meet again on Monday morning.
“A fair amount of my day was spent in one-on-one meetings with different senators who were not sitting at the table and are either really opposed … or really not engaged on the immigration debate from the other caucus and just trying to get a sense of what’s possible,” said Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.).
In another boost to McConnell, he picked up the support of Graham and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) for the three-week continuing resolution. Both Republican senators voted with Democrats against the House measure last week, giving them bipartisan cover.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — who met with McConnell, Graham and Flake on Sunday night — described himself as “optimistic” that the shutdown will soon end despite the funding fight getting kicked to Monday.
"On balance, it's better to have a successful vote tomorrow at noon than a failed vote tonight," he said.
The rich asshole administration was clear: ‘An analysis conducted by DHS’ concluded that 73% of terrorists were ‘foreign-born.’ Except DHS analysts had nothing to do with the conclusion.
The document didn’t mince words. It claimed three-quarters of “international terrorism” convicts were immigrants, an assertion meant to bolster some rich asshole’s cherished Muslim-focused ban on entering the country. And the report put the claim in the mouths of an agency assembled to keep Americans safe after 9/11: the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Working off the 549 federal international-terrorism convictions tallied by the Justice Department, the document stated: “An analysis conducted by DHS determined that approximately 73 percent (402 of these 549 individuals) were foreign-born.”
But the Department of Homeland Security did not perform that analysis. DHS’ analysts did not contribute to the highly controversial report, The Daily Beast has learned.
According to a government source familiar with the episode, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ office took charge of the report’s assemblage of statistics—which some terrorism analysts consider highly misleading—and sent it to DHS Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen for her imprimatur after it was all but finalized.
“The the rich asshole administration is trying to turn counterterrorism into an immigration issue,” said Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina, where he tracks Muslim-American involvement in terrorism.
“Within DHS, the perception is that the rich asshole administration used the Department to conflate immigrants with terrorists in support of the president’s immigration crackdown.”
Career professional analysts at DHS communicated to the Justice Department that the data sought for the report simply did not exist within their department. DHS, multiple sources said, does not track or correlate international terrorism data by citizenship or country of origin, and have warned the rich asshole administration that doing so risks a misleading portrait of both terrorism and immigration.
The result was that the document released last week did not include the contributions of those career DHS officials tasked with providing professional and objective analysis. They were not asked to participate, and so the document did not reflect their input. The Justice Department took the lead on the report, as its public rollout indicated, complete with a senior Justice official conducting a White House press briefing – without a DHS counterpart.
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To some within DHS, The Daily Beast has learned, the perception is that the rich asshole administration used the Department to conflate immigrants with terrorists in support of the president’s signature immigration crackdown.
“This kind of bureaucratic manipulation of what should be objective, professional analysis is what undermines confidence in these institutions,” said Michael German, a former FBI special agent now with New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.
DHS spokespeople did not respond to questions and requests for comment. A Justice Department official told The Daily Beast: “All essential components from DOJ and DHS contributed to the production of the Section 11 Report.”
The report, issued Tuesday, flowed out of the rich asshole’s March executive order authorizing a modified version of the travel ban. But its story began earlier.
the rich asshole’s first travel ban, enacted in late January 2017, directed DHS, “in consultation with the attorney general,” to release data on immigration and terrorism. That included “the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been charged with terrorism-related offenses while in the United States” as well as those “convicted of terrorism-related offenses while in the United States” and removed from the U.S. for terrorism “or any other national security reasons.”
A month later, a DHS draft analysis was leaked to the Associated Press. That document criticized the methodology and implication of the travel ban. It noted that few people from the original seven countries covered by the travel ban were involved in terrorism on U.S. soil. And it was titled “Citizenship Likely an Unreliable Indicator of Terrorist Threat to the United States.”
While DHS’ analysts keep track of domestic terrorism data and immigration data, they do not cross-reference that data by citizenship.
“DHS does not keep [those] kind of stats, make these reports, or track this information. That’s solely in the purview of the [Justice Department],” a former senior DHS official said.
A second former DHS official confirmed that.
“You’re asking for information that isn’t tracked by DHS in that way. It’s almost as if DOJ would have to identify immigration convictions for terrorism things and then go to DHS to say, ‘Run this name and date of birth through your system and tell us this person’s immigration status,” this ex-DHS official told The Daily Beast.
Then, on March 2, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow published a different DHS analysis that went further. Most foreign-born terrorists who came to the U.S. “likely radicalized several years after their entry to the United States,” it found, “limiting the ability of screening and vetting officials to prevent their radicalization.” It referenced another as-yet-undisclosed DHS analysis of recent foreign-born terrorists that found they “began radicalizing, on average, 13 years after their entry to the United States.” The implication, undermining the rationale for the so-called Muslim ban, is that immigrants don’t come to the United States to commit terrorism; most of those who become terrorists do so long after they become Americans.
Nevertheless, the next version of the ban, issued four days later, also mandated public release of the same immigration-tied terrorism data as the January iteration required. Its 11th section once again charged “the Secretary of Homeland Security” with the data disclosure, “in consultation with the Attorney General.”
DHS, according to the government source, communicated through the interagency channels set out in the executive order that it doesn’t keep the data the order sought. Accordingly, some within DHS considered the data request inappropriate, and an indication the administration was laundering a misleading report through the department’s reputation. The lack of the requested data and the internal discomfort about assembling it anyway were among the reasons why the report came months later than the September deadline specified in the executive order.
Ultimately, the government source said, DHS’ analysts did not contribute anything of substance, and the Justice Department took charge. It was a longstanding preoccupation of Attorney General Sessions. As a senator, Sessions had taken to publishing charts tracking the immigration status of people charged with terrorism offenses.
Yet the FBI, which also aggressively tracks terrorism data—it administers the Terrorist Screening Center, which oversees the various terrorism watchlists – also did not play a substantial role in preparing the report, The Daily Beast has learned. An FBI spokesman referred comment to DHS and the Justice Department.
The major extent of DHS’ involvement in the report, according to the source, was Secretary Nielsen’s sign-off, shortly before its public release.
“This report is a clear reminder of why we cannot continue to rely on immigration policy based on pre-9/11 thinking that leaves us woefully vulnerable to foreign-born terrorists, and why we must examine our visa laws and continue to intensify screening and vetting of individuals traveling to the United States to prevent terrorists, criminals, and other dangerous individuals from reaching our country,” Nielsen said in a Tuesday statement.
Sessions has been trying to get back into the rich asshole’s good graces after recusing himself from the Russia inquiry, which has prompted the rich asshole to grow so irate with Sessions that the attorney general offered to resign. Shortly after the release of the report, Sessions said it highlighted the “ indisputable sobering reality” that “our immigration system has undermined our national security and public safety.”
the rich asshole seemed to approve. “New report from DOJ & DHS shows that nearly 3 in 4 individuals convicted of terrorism-related charges are foreign-born,” he tweeted the day of the report’s release—conspicuously omitting that the report only covered international terrorism, and had by design omitted domestic terrorism. He continued: “We need to keep America safe, including moving away from a random chain migration and lottery system, to one that is merit-based.”
His press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said the report “highlights the urgent need for Congress to adopt the immigration reforms identified in the administration’s priorities.” She was accompanied at the podium by a senior Justice Department official, Ed O’Callaghan—and, conspicuously, no one from DHS.
Almost immediately afterward, other terrorism studies came to starkly different conclusions about terrorism in the U.S. and immigration.
“Here’s a government report focused just on Muslim terrorism... and ignoring the facts that white terrorists killed more people in 2017 than Muslim terrorists.”
— Former DHS terrorism analyst Daryl Johnson
On Wednesday, the Anti-Defamation League released its own analysis of terrorism inside the U.S. in 2017. Though its scope was different than the administration’s, the ADL found that 59 percent of extremist-related deaths in the U.S. in 2017 were caused by white supremacists and far-right extremists.
Then, on Thursday, Kurzman, the North Carolina professor, published his annual index of Muslim-American involvement in terrorism. (PDF) Like the ADL report, its focus is different than the Justice-DHS offering. But it found “no attacks in 2017 by Muslim-American extremists with family backgrounds in travel-ban countries.” Since 9/11, terrorists from ban countries “have caused zero fatalities and 32 injuries” domestically. For good measure, Kurzman’s report noted, “almost twice as many people were killed in the United States by mass shootings in 2017 as have been killed by Muslim-American extremists in the past 16 years.”
Though the Justice-DHS report was an outgrowth of the travel ban, it notably did not associate its purported 73 percent of foreign-born terrorism convictions with travel-ban countries—an omission Kurzman believes occurred because “it would show there’s very little violence from folks from the travel-ban countries.”
But a larger omission in the report intrigues Kurzman: domestic terrorism.
According to data referenced by federal prosecutors around the country, there have been approximately 1,400 cases of domestic terrorism prosecuted since 9/11, a total more than twice the 549 cases of international terrorism that the Justice-DHS report examined. Since the data format excludes relevant information like case docket numbers, Kurzman and the Brennan Center have filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the missing domestic-terrorism information. If successful, they seek to use this much larger data set to determine, among other things, a more comprehensive picture of the relationship between terrorism and immigration.
Chances are, the professional analysts at DHS could tell them that.
“Here’s a government report focused just on Muslim terrorism and demonizing that threat and ignoring the facts that white terrorists killed more people in 2017 than Muslim terrorists,” said Daryl Johnson—a former professional DHS terrorism analyst.
“It’s strictly focused on trying to implicate Muslim immigration and terrorism and hype up the threat.”
—with additional reporting by Betsy Woodruff
Mitch McConnell thinks Democrats are very dumb
McConnell's empty promise, explained.
JUDD LEGUM
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) went to the Senate floor on Sunday night and laid out his position on the government shutdown. Thus far, McConnell has rejected repeated overtures from Democrats to keep the government open for three or four more days while negotiations on the budget, health care and immigration continue.
Instead, McConnell said he wants a three week continuing resolution that will keep the government open through February 8. If, by that date, there is no agreement on immigration issues, McConnell now says it is his “intention” to take up separate legislation that would deal with DACA and “related issues.”
the rich asshole ended the DACA program, which provides legal protections to about 800,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, in the fall. Providing a permanent fix for this group has been a key sticking point in negotiations to keep the government running.
There were more caveats. McConnell would only take up such legislation if Democrats agree to continue to provide votes for government funding prior to any immigration votes.
McConnell’s latest offer is little more than an empty promise.
The House has pointedly made no agreement to take up DACA legislation, even if it passes the Senate. If the House does not consider the legislation, it will have have no impact on the 800,000 young people whose lives are now in limbo.
Further, McConnell made the exact same promise to Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) in December. He promised Flake that, in exchange for Flake’s support for the tax legislation, the Senate would take up a fix for DACA by the end of January.
Bipartisan #DACA bill will be on the Senate floor in January.
McConnell’s December pledge also had a number of caveats and a month later, he seems to have forgotten all about it.
Finally, thousands of DACA recipients will begin to lose their legal protections in March. McConnell is not pledging to hold a vote on a fix for DACA at any time — only to take up the legislation. That could mean weeks or months of hearings or committee action with no actual votes.
Nevertheless, McConnell’s new position does seem to be enough to satisfy Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) who voted against the first Republican plan for government funding.
One person who doesn’t seem to be convinced is Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Schumer objected to McConnell’s proposal to consider the February 8 continuing resolution at 10PM. Instead of waiting until 1AM, when McConnell could have held the vote without Schumer’s agreement, McConnell postponed the vote until Monday at noon.
At that time, the Republicans will need 60 votes for the legislation to move forward. Republicans currently control 51 seats.
Shutdown throws White House State of the Union plans into turmoil: report
some rich asshole on the phone in Air Force One (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
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The White House’s plans for President some rich asshole’s State of the Union address have been scuttled by the uncertain nature of the government shutdown and questions about how long it will last, said Politico on Sunday.
“With the midterm elections looming and the president polling poorly, some of the rich asshole’s advisers had counseled him to use the speech to map out a more middle-of-the-road approach to the year ahead,” wrote Politico‘s Andrew Restuccia. “But the shutdown has poisoned the chances of bipartisan legislative breakthroughs on Capitol Hill and deeply damaged the president’s relationship with Democrats.”
White House senior adviser Stephen Miller has been quietly drafting sections of the speech for weeks, but the impasse in Congress about immigration policy has changed the terrain.
A White House official told Politico that plans for how to address the stalemate are currently “in flux.”
“Now is a natural time for the president to pivot from partisan activities to bipartisan activities. But the shutdown is all about partisan politics,” the official said, warning that the rich asshole’s frustration with the situation could well bleed over into the text of the address.
Later this week, the rich asshole is scheduled to fly to Davos, Switzerland to tout his success passing a tax plan before the World Economic Forum — a glittering gathering of some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people.
“But he is now caught up in a domestic drama that threatens to overtake both the trip and the Jan. 30 address,” Restuccia wrote.
Aides say that the speech will definitely address issues of immigration and national security, but the rest is largely uncertain. The administration had hoped to use the speech to tout the rich asshole’s ambitious infrastructure plan, but that plan could be hobbled by the lack of bipartisan consensus in the wake of the shutdown.
Parts of the speech have been circulated among White House staff including chief of staff John Kelly and other senior aides.
“The exact contours of the rich asshole’s message on immigration during the speech will depend on how long the shutdown drags on and whether Republicans and Democrats can reach a deal to protect hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as minors,” Politico said. “Still, aides said the rich asshole is certain to talk about the need for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and for beefing up border security.”
Department of Homeland Security: the rich asshole administration didn’t consult us for ‘DHS study’ on terrorism
some rich asshole crosses arms when asked about Robert Mueller investigation (Photo: Screen capture)
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was not consulted nor were its analysts used to compile a the rich asshole administration report on terrorism that claims to have come from the DHS, said Spencer Ackerman at The Daily Beast on Sunday.
The administration report claimed that three quarters of “international terrorism” convictions involve immigrants to the United States and was sent out to the media as a bolster to President some rich asshole’s ban on Muslims entering the country.
“An analysis conducted by DHS determined that approximately 73 percent (402 of these 549 individuals) were foreign-born,” said the report.
The trouble is, Ackerman wrote, “the Department of Homeland Security did not perform that analysis. DHS’ analysts did not contribute to the highly controversial report.”
Rather than relying on DHS Secretary Kristjen Nielsen to compile the figures for the report, Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions — a former Alabama senator and immigration hard-liner — compiled the report and only allowed Nielsen to have input when it was nearly complete.
“The the rich asshole administration is trying to turn counterterrorism into an immigration issue,” said terrorism expert Charles Kurzman to The Daily Beast.
“Career professional analysts at DHS communicated to the Justice Department that the data sought for the report simply did not exist within their department,” said Ackerman. “DHS, multiple sources said, does not track or correlate international terrorism data by citizenship or country of origin, and have warned the rich asshole administration that doing so risks a misleading portrait of both terrorism and immigration.”
DHS was essentially frozen out of the project, sources said, and the report was presented by a Justice Department spokesman without an accompanying official from DHS.
the rich asshole unhappy over Zinke's Florida offshore drilling exemption: report
BY BRETT SAMUELS - 01/21/18 06:16 PM EST
President the rich asshole made it clear to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinkethat he was upset by the decision to exempt Florida from expanded offshore drilling, Axios reported Sunday.
Zinke did not coordinate with anyone, including the White House, before making his decision, and the move has likely hurt Zinke's image within the administration, Axios reported.
However, sources told the news outlet the issue has not ruined Zinke’s relationship with the rich asshole.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
Zinke said earlier this month that he won’t allow offshore drilling in waters near Florida through 2024.
The decision came after Zinke met with Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) in Tallahassee earlier in the day to discuss the governor's objections. It was a day after Zinke proposed opening nearly all of the nation’s coasts to drilling.
Since then, numerous other lawmakers from coastal states — including New Hampshire, Washington, New York and California — have asked for a similar exemption.
Zinke’s initial proposal to expand offshore drilling off both of the nation's coasts is the first step in the process for crafting a plan for lease sales. After gathering public comment on the proposal, Interior will craft another proposal, before finalizing the areas that will be available for drilling.
BY MIKE LILLIS - 01/21/18 05:30 PM EST
House Republicans are sending an early warning to their GOP colleagues in the Senate: We’re not a rubber stamp for any deal you cut with Democrats on immigration.
“It’s been crystal clear,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.). “Just because they accept something, doesn’t mean we will. And it certainly doesn’t mean the administration will.”
The comments arrived on Day Two of the government shutdown, as talks between party leaders have largely broken down and a bipartisan group of Senate moderates has stepped into the void in an attempt to break the impasse with a deal over the fate of recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Rep. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an immigration reform advocate in the midst of those talks, said Sunday that, while sticking points remain, he’s optimistic the discussions can yield an agreement before the 1 a.m. Monday vote scheduled in the Senate on a three-week extension of government funding — a proposal the Democrats are expected to block.
“I think there will be a breakthrough tonight,” Graham said. “If there’s going to be one, it’s going to be tonight.”
Not so fast, said House Republicans.
“No offense to anybody involved … but Lindsey Graham and [Sen.] Jeff Flake [R-Ariz.] don’t represent where a majority of the Republicans in the Senate are [on immigration], let alone here,” Cole said Sunday, leaving a gathering of House Republicans in the Capitol basement. “So how can they be the lead negotiators on that?
“I just don’t think that’s likely.”
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the head of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, is sending a similar message. He emphasized that the rich asshole has insisted that any deal on DACA must also include provisions to strengthen border security, reduce family-based immigration and eliminate the diversity visa lottery. Meadows said he trusts the president to hold that line, regardless what the Senate moderates produce.
“The president has been very clear in articulating what it would take,” Meadows said.
Meadows also pushed back on reports that the rich asshole might be considering a deal with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) that would combine the DACA protections with billions of dollars in border wall funding.
“That was never the deal,” he said. “The president has been very consistent.”
The debate over the fate of DACA recipients, immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children, has been a political headache for Republican leaders. They say they’ll accept the rich asshole’s challenge to codify the DACA protections, but have struggled to come up with a proposal that accomplishes that goal without exposing the fierce divisions within their conference on the issue.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) had promised House conservatives before taking the gavel that he would not bring a vote on any immigration proposal that didn’t meet the so-called Hastert Rule, which says that any bill must have the support of the majority of the majority to get a vote.
More recently, Ryan has said he won’t vote on any immigration bill that lacks the rich asshole’s support.
Many conservatives are pushing a Republican bill, sponsored by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), combining a DACA fix with a reduction in legal immigration and a long list of tough enforcement provisions favored by immigration hawks. Yet it’s unclear if the proposal has the Republican support to pass the House — “We haven’t whipped the Goodlatte bill; we don’t know where we’re at,” Cole said — and it would almost certainly fail in the face of Democratic opposition in the Senate.
“We’ve been working steadily, building support very rapidly,” Goodlatte told The Hill on Sunday. He declined to put a number on that support.
Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), a moderate immigration reformer, said ultimately GOP leaders will be forced to bring a vote on a DACA fix, whether it meets the standards of the Hastert Rule or not.
“I always love it around here. We’re all for the majority of the majority — until we’re not,” Dent, clad in a Philadelphia Eagles jacket, told reporters.
“At some point there’s going to be a bipartisan DREAM Act bill, or DACA bill, that’s gonna have to be voted on in the House — with or without a majority of the majority.
“We’re just gonna have to deal with it.”
White House changes public voicemail to say Democrats holding government ‘hostage’
BY BRETT SAMUELS - 01/21/18 12:13 PM EST
The White House's public comment telephone line isn't accepting calls amid the ongoing government shutdown, and its recently updated recorded message blames it on Democrats.
Upon calling the comment line Sunday morning at (202) 456-1111, a woman's voice reads the following message:
“Thank you for calling the White House. Unfortunately, we cannot answer your call today because congressional Democrats are holding government funding, including funding for our troops and other national security priorities, hostage to an unrelated immigration debate," she says.
“Due to this obstruction, the government is shut down," she continues. “In the meantime, you can leave a comment for the president at www.whitehouse.gov/contact. We look forward to taking your calls as soon as the government reopens.”
The call then disconnects.
The government shutdown stretched into its second day on Sunday, with no clear indication that an agreement to reopen it is imminent.
Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats have steadfastly blamed the other side for causing the shutdown.
Democrats have opposed any funding measure that doesn't include assurances for addressing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Republicans have argued that by doing so, Democrats are holding government funding hostage.
Democrats have pinned the blame on Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, and President the rich asshole in particular, saying the president changes his positions too frequently to be a reliable negotiating partner.
January 21, 2018
Lauren Gill
Posted with permission from Newsweek
The man in charge of shutting down the government said he only found out the task was part of his job description a day before doing the deed, and thought the duty—which furloughs hundreds of thousands of workers and costs the economy billions—is “kind of cool.”
In an interview with conservative commentator Sean Hannity on Friday before the shutdown went into effect, Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney chatted about newly claimed importance.
"Obviously, I'm heavily involved in this, Sean, is that the Office of Management and Budget is charged with, you know, sort of implementing running a shutdown," he said, as first reported by Media Matters for America. “I found out for the first time last night that the person who technically shuts down the government down is me, which is kind of cool.”
Mulvaney's definition of "cool" is unclear—during the last shutdown in 2013, 850,000 “non-essential” federal workers were told not to report to work over its 16 days. Both furloughed and non-furloughed staffers are unpaid, and although they are supposed to be paid retroactively, some employees still haven’t received compensation for those days. National parks were also closed and gated off, losing about 700,000 visitors per day. Altogether, the shutdown cost the economy an estimated $24 billion.
Although this may be the first shutdown that Mulvaney has ordered, it isn’t the first time he has helped orchestrate one. In 2013, he played a prominent role in shuttering the government and voted to keep it going when lawmakers reached a deal to end it.
The shutdown came on the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, as the Republican-controlled Congress failed to reach a deal to keep the government fully operational.
The dispute is centered on protections for undocumented migrants who arrived in the United States as children. Democrats want to ensure that 700,00 “dreamers” who arrived under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are protected from deportations.
Trump, whose quest to build a wall on the U.S. and Mexico border was at the forefront of his campaign, rejected a bipartisan proposal last week and said he wanted to include any deal for dreamers in a larger package that accompanied funding for the wall and increased security along the border.
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 01/21/18 04:58 PM EST
President the rich asshole worked the phones on Sunday in hopes of finding a deal to end the government shutdown before it enters a third day.
the rich asshole personally spoke with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn(Texas), according to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Chief of staff John Kelly spoke to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and updated the president on the talks. Legislative director Marc Short also held talks with members on both sides of the aisle.
“We are continuing to work hard towards reopening the government and making sure our great military and their families, vulnerable children and the American people are being taken care of,” Sanders said in a statement.
The flurry of calls came on Day Two of the shutdown, as Republican and Democratic lawmakers tried to work toward an agreement while also blaming the other side for the closure.
A bipartisan group of senators signaled they were making progress toward a spending deal ahead of an expected procedural vote at 1 a.m. Monday.
the rich asshole has not made a public appearance since the shutdown began, and the White House said he would not speak on camera Sunday.
The president has taken repeated swipes at Democrats on Twitter, writing early Sunday morning that they "just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked.”
the rich asshole also suggested scrapping the 60-vote threshold for legislation in the Senate if the "stalemate continues,” but that idea was dismissed by Senate Republicans.
Democrats have laid blame at the rich asshole’s feet, saying the president rejected a sweeping deal on spending and immigration hours before the Friday shutdown deadline.
"[He] can't take 'yes' for an answer. That's why we're here," Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday on the Senate floor.
He added that he made the rich asshole a "very generous offer,” but the president walked away.
Sanders disputed that account.
“Sen. Schumer’s memory is hazy because his account of Friday’s meeting is false,” she said. “And the president’s position is clear: we will not negotiate on the status of unlawful immigrants while Sen. Schumer and the Democrats hold the government for millions of Americans and our troops hostage.”
Senate sets noon Monday vote after it is unable to reach deal to open government
Birds fly over the White House in Washington, U.S., on the second day of Government shutdown, January 21, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
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The U.S. Senate scheduled a vote for Monday at noon (1700 GMT) on a stopgap spending measure, canceling a planned vote for Monday at 1 a.m. (0600 GMT), ensuring that the federal government will remain closed when the work week begins.
“It would be my intention to proceed to legislation that would address DACA, border security and related issues. It is also my intention to take up legislation on increased defense spending, disaster relief and other important matters,” Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor.
(Reporting by Ginger Gibson; Editing by Peter Cooney)
BY OLIVIA BEAVERS - 01/21/18 07:13 PM EST
The head of the House Intelligence Committee hasn't shared with the FBI a classified memo allegedly detailing political bias around the federal probe into possible ties between the rich asshole campaign and Russia, despite requests, according to a spokesman for the bureau.
"The FBI has requested to receive a copy of the memo in order to evaluate the information and take appropriate steps if necessary. To date, the request has been declined," Andrew Ames said in a statement.
The Daily Beast first reported the FBI's statement.
The memo, produced by Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and his staff, created buzz last week among the scores of House Republicans who viewed the classified report detailing alleged surveillance abuses.
Many of the GOP lawmakers who viewed the memo said it provided hard evidence senior FBI and Department of Justice officials made politically motivated decisions that ultimately sparked special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether the rich asshole campaign officials colluded with the Kremlin.
"You all need to see it,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who called it "alarming." “More importantly, the American public needs to see it. What the FBI did is just as wrong as it can be.”
The Hill has reached out to Nunes's office for comment regarding the FBI's statement.
Both Democrats and Republicans described the document as a top-line summary that is supported by classified documents and interviews. Apart from congressional leaders, lawmakers do not have high enough security clearances to view the other documents.
Democrats, however, questioned whether the underlying highly classified information proves there was political bias within the government.
“I think the whole political purpose of this is to make a misleading case to the public, perpetuate the president’s political narrative, but not let the public see the underlying materials that would show just how distorted it is — I think that’s by design,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Intelligence panel.
“The problem is, we can’t point out the inaccuracies without relying on the underlying material,” he added.
Republicans have claimed that the FBI used an unverified dossier linking President the rich asshole to Russia as the basis to obtain a politically motivated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to spy on the rich asshole campaign during the transition, although former bureau officials have stated that such claims suggest a misunderstanding of the law.
Some Republican lawmakers have began publicly blasting Mueller's probe. the rich asshole has attacked the federal investigation as a "witch hunt."
Katie Bo Williams and Jonathan Easley contributed.
Pelosi pans the rich asshole's $20B wall funding ask: 'Oh, come on'
BY MIKE LILLIS - 01/21/18 03:46 PM EST
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Sunday spurned President the rich asshole’s $20 billion request for a border wall, suggesting Democrats in the lower chamber would oppose that figure even if it ensured a deal to protect recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
“All of the money he wants for his wall? Oh, come on, come on, come on,” Pelosi said at a press briefing in the Capitol.
Pelosi was reacting to a new ABC News report on a possible deal between the rich asshole and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) combining $20 billion in border wall funding with strong legal protections for DACA recipients, immigrants who came to the country illegally as children.
Pelosi suggested she’s open to new wall funding — a shift in tone for the Democratic leader — but also emphasized that any such amount should be determined by the expressed need of border authorities, not a figure floated by the president, which she suggested is arbitrary.
“We all have a responsibility to protect our borders, north and south. There’s no question about that. So what do we need to do that? Why don’t we have an appraisal of what that should be,” Pelosi said.
“Should there be fencing? Should there be technology? Should they mow the grass so that people can’t hide in it? Should there be some bricks and mortar someplace?
“Let’s see.”
Republicans have attacked the Democrats’ opposition to new wall construction, noting that a number of prominent Democratic lawmakers had endorsed new funding in an immigration package passed by the Senate in 2013. (House GOP leaders never took it up.)
Pelosi acknowledged that past support, but was quick to draw a distinction: Democrats are willing to support a host of tougher security measures in a comprehensive immigration reform bill, like the 2013 proposal, that addresses the fate of the 11 million people in the country illegally. But they’re not open to all of those same enforcement provisions as part of a DACA fix, which deals with just a sliver of that population.
“There was much more of a commitment to more border infrastructure [in 2013], but we were protecting 11 million people,” she said. “This is in the hundreds of thousands. … You’re on the wrong path if you think the $20 billion” will win Democrats’ support.
The comments arrive on Day Two of the government shutdown, with the parties stuck in a deadlock over how to proceed and each side digging in and waiting for the other to blink.
Congress has passed three short-term funding patches since October, and the Democrats are rejecting a fourth unless it’s accompanied by a deal on DACA. the rich asshole and the Republicans, meanwhile, are refusing to discuss a DACA fix before the government reopens.
The sides seemed to make some progress on the immigration impasse Friday night, when Senate GOP leaders agreed to stage a vote by Feb. 8 on a bipartisan bill, sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), that couples DACA protections with tougher border security efforts. The bill faces stiff headwinds, however, after the rich asshole rejected the proposal last week, siding with conservative immigration hawks who deem it too soft on enforcement.
But Pelosi and House Democrats say a Senate vote is not enough of an assurance, in their eyes, to secure DACA. They also want a promise from House GOP leaders that the bill will get a vote in the lower chamber, too.
“It would have to be a vote in the House and the Senate,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi said Democrats are fine with a stand-alone DACA fix, as GOP leaders are insisting, as opposed to attaching the immigration piece to a fiscal 2018 omnibus spending bill — but with one condition.
“You have to do it first,” she said.
Democrats have long opposed any funding for new border wall construction, arguing there are more effective and efficient ways to deflect illegal crossings. But with both sides dug in over the fate of DACA recipients — and the government shuttered since Saturday morning — even some of the most ardent wall opponents say they’ll now grant the rich asshole his wall funding if it secures a fix for the program.
“I’ll take a bucket, take bricks, and start building it myself,” Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) said Saturday.
There are mixed messages coming from the White House about the importance — and the wisdom — of building the rich asshole’s promised wall. While the president has pressed hard to make good on his most prominent campaign vow, his chief of staff, John Kelly, told members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) last week that the rich asshole as a candidate was “uninformed” about the feasibility of erecting a physical barrier spanning the border. It’s a message CHC leaders haven’t forgotten as the DACA standoff continues this week.
“Until we see something from the White House, and they’re very clear in language from the Senate, there’s really nothing to react to,” Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), head of the CHC, said Sunday. “Because the last contact we had with Kelly is [him saying], ‘That wouldn’t make any sense, a wall, whatsoever.’ And that’s the last statement that he made.”
Who is responsible for the shutdown? GOP Senator points finger at White House.
Pointing the finger directly at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
There is a raging debate about who is responsible for the government shutdown, which has now lasted two days.
A key Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham (SC), offered his opinion on Sunday afternoon: the problem is the White House staff.
Graham pointed the finger specifically at White House Senior Adviser Stephen Miller, who holds extreme views on immigration. According to Graham, any proposal offered to the president is “yanked back by staff members,” adding “[a]s long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating on immigration, we are going nowhere.”
Walking into moderates meeting, Graham blasts WH staff, and calls out Stephen Miller by name, for undercutting president by pitching proposals he doesn’t support
According to Republican consultant Rick Wilson, Graham’s frustrations are shared, more quietly, by his GOP colleagues.
Sotto voce, many Republicans, particularly in the Senate, are blaming the President, and his co-President Stephen Miller. Miller’s role in placing a Semtex charge under the tenuous DACA deal at the heart of this budget frenzy is a sign of his overwhelming power in this White House. Miller’s racial obsessions with immigrants are playing out in a game of political chicken where five trains are racing toward one track in the switchyard of American politics.
Miller is championing a proposal “to radically slash legal immigration to the United States,” cutting it in half over next ten years.
On Friday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) offered the rich asshole substantial concessions on funding for a wall on the southern border and believed he was making progress toward a deal. But Schumer was later called by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, another immigration hardliner, and told the offer was not enough to interest the White House.
Another vote to potentially end the shutdown is scheduled for Monday at 1AM.
the rich asshole to South Korean president: Give me credit for diplomatic progress with North Korea
This comes after months of threatening war and saying diplomacy with Pyongyang was pointless.
As North and South Korea continue to make diplomatic inroads at the Winter Olympics in Pyongchang, The Washington Post reports that President some rich asshole was mostly concerned about who would get credit for bringing the two Koreas together.
President the rich asshole, who on the floor of the United Nations threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea in September and has issued multiple threats via Twitter (in addition to taunting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un) has made it clear that he considers diplomatic talks with Pyongyang a waste of time.
Tensions between the United States and North Korea have been high since last summer, when Pyongyang started a fresh round of ballistic missile tests and even tested an underground nuclear bomb in the fall. The United States has successfully pushed the U.N. Security Council to pass several rounds of sanctions against North Korea since then over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
But after North and South Korea began to make slow progress — at first only agreeing to open a phone line between them that had been closed for over two years — the rich asshole got on the phone with South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in and asked that he be given credit for the thaw in diplomatic relations.
The Post reports: “During a Jan. 4 phone call in which the South Korean leader briefed the American president on the plans for talks with North Korea, the rich asshole asked Moon to publicly give him the credit for creating the environment for the talks, according to people familiar with the conversation.”
It’s worth noting that this call happened the day after Seoul announced that the phone line had been re-opened, and two days after the rich asshole boasted that his nuclear button is “much bigger & more powerful” than Kim’s nuclear button. So two days after the rich asshole goads Kim, he pushes President Moon (which, according to The Post, he addressed as “Jae-In” — “an unimaginable informality in Korean business etiquette”), but demanded credit for the progress between Seoul and Pyongyang.
And he got it too.
Roughly a week later, Moon told reporters that the rich asshole deserved “huge credit for bringing about the inter-Korean talks.” He made no reference to the rich asshole’s threats of “fire & fury” against neighboring North Korea, which is the subject of much discourse in South Korean media.
Specifically, there’s a worry that the rich asshole’s style of presidency will only increase the odds of war on the Koreans peninsula at a time when China, South Korea and Japan are all pushing to ease tensions with Pyongyang.
the rich asshole is ‘itching’ to jump into shutdown debate even as aides struggle to keep him quiet: report
some rich asshole (AFP/File / SAUL LOEB)
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President some rich asshole has kept a low profile since the government shutdown began late Friday night, prompting some pundits to question when the president’s purported skills as a bargainer would come into play.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that in fact, the rich asshole is eager to jump into the fray, even as exhausted aides and advisers try to keep him from doing more damage.
White House advisers told the Post that the rich asshole has been counseled to keep his head down so as not to get branded as the face of the shutdown — although polls show that he and the Republicans are taking the brunt of blame from the public.
White House chief of staff John Kelly, director of legislative affairs Marc Short, budget director Mick Mulvaney and others have cautioned the rich asshole against appearing too ready to make a deal with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
“Aides and advisers also reminded the rich asshole of the perils of getting too deeply involved at this point, noting Congress is more unpopular than him and talking about some of the unpleasant experiences he has had negotiating with Capitol Hill,” wrote the Post‘s Josh Dawsey and Ashley Parker.
“Privately, some of his closest advisers admit the president is an erratic dealmaker who can unexpectedly overturn negotiations like a flimsy coffee table,” the Post said.
Sources say the rich asshole is “itching” to be involved, watching TV coverage of the shutdown obsessively and orchestrating media appearances by surrogates. He has managed to restrain himself on Twitter and let aides do the bulk of the talking over the weekend.
However, the president is nothing if not changeable and could be expected to rebel against his current level of message discipline at any time.
He has asked aides in recent days if they feel he’ll be blamed for the shutdown while simultaneously boasting that he’s handing the crisis better than then-President Barack Obama did in 2013.
Irritated at public perception that he’s not working, the rich asshole released a series of official White House photos on Saturday, but they were promptly ridiculed.
“the rich asshole’s desk was empty,” said the Post.
Furloughed worker to ‘great negotiator’ the rich asshole: ‘Show your skills’ so I can go back to work
David Fitzpatrick of the AFGE (Screen capture)
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A federal worker who has been furloughed under the government shutdown said on MSNBC that he wishes President some rich asshole would put his much-vaunted negotiating skills to work in resolving the government shutdown.
J. David Cox and David Fitzpatrick of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) told MSNBC anchor Yasmin Vossoughian that their union is less than impressed with the rich asshole’s handling of the crisis so far.
“I’d rather be at work at this time,” Fitzpatrick said, “and hopefully this doesn’t go on long enough that I’m not going to receive pay.”
Vossoughian said that 48 percent of the public blames the president and the GOP for the shutdown, to which Cox agreed, saying, “The buck stops with the president.”
“When some rich asshole was running for president, he said he was the great negotiator,” said Fitzpatrick. “And here we are, his first test and it doesn’t look like he’s such a great negotiator in my eyes.”
Vossoughian asked if that means Fitzpatrick blames the rich asshole for the shutdown.
“Well, he’s the guy that ran on that,” Fitzpatrick said. “So get the Congress together, get the two houses together and negotiate. As union leaders, we do it every day, we negotiate with management.”
“So, show your skills,” he said. “Get out there and negotiate and let’s get back to work.”
Watch the video, embedded below:
BY ALICIA COHN - 01/21/18 09:24 AM EST
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney on Sunday predicted that the government shutdown could last more than a week.
“I think Democrats want to see the president give the State of the Union under a shutdown,” he said on "Fox News Sunday."
Mulvaney said Democrats want to hurt President the rich asshole by keeping the government closed.
He also said, however, that negotiations are continuing on ending the shutdown and “there’s a chance it gets solved before Monday.”
the rich asshole’s first State of the Union is scheduled for Jan. 30.
White House attempts to distance itself from incendiary ad approved by the rich asshole. It didn’t go well.
The ad literally concludes "I'm some rich asshole and I approve this message."
On Saturday, some rich asshole’s re-election campaign aired an incendiary, unhinged new ad claiming that Democrats who oppose his demand for a border wall “will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants.” It was particularly strange timing given the fact that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) offered to fund the wall in exchange for a real solution for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children or DREAMers.
On Sunday Republicans, including those working for the rich asshole in the White House, tried to distance themselves from the ad.
NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Marc Short, the rich asshole White House’s director of Legislative Affairs, if airing an ad like that was helpful in the effort to reach the compromise needed to reopen the government.
“Well, you know that ad was produced by an outside group…” Short started to respond, before Todd interjected, “‘some rich asshole for President’ is an outside group?” repeating it again in incredulity. The ad concludes with the rich asshole saying “I’m some rich asshole and I approve this message” and a photo of the rich asshole with two thumbs up.
“It’s done from a political organization, it’s not done by people working inside the White House,” Short said, before attempting to pivot into a general argument for solving “the problem of immigration coming in, and the threat it poses to our country.”
First, it would be illegal for the White House to actually produce and pay for campaign ads, so Short’s attempt to distance himself from the impact of the ad is disingenuous. Senior White House staff are allowed to engage in campaign activity during their day jobs in the White House, as long as they do not use government resources. some rich asshole runs both the White House and his campaign, and some White House so there is actual coordination between the two entities. For Short to dismiss the ad as if it were produced by some other nonprofit or Super PAC is absurd.
Second, while it might have been a misstatement, Short actually characterized immigration — all immigration, not just the usual target of illegal immigration — as a “problem” and a “threat” posed to the United States. Misstatement or not, it does not help bridge the divide between the White House and the vast majority of Americans who support giving Dreamers legal status and oppose building the wall.
Another prominent Republican stepped away from the the rich asshole campaign ad on Sunday.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said on CBS’ Face the Nation that the ad was not helpful when host John Dickerson asked if Democrats were, as the ad argues, complicit.
“Well, they’re certainly not helping us keep the government open,” Ryan said. “They’re certainly not helping us on a solution to immigration. When you shut down the government and stop negotiating on immigration reform, they’re complicit with not getting things done.”
Dickerson asked again if Democrats were complicit in murders.
“I’m not going to comment,” Ryan replied. “I just saw that. I don’t know if that’s necessarily productive. It’s not secret the president has strong views on immigration. But what is not productive is a pointless government shutdown that the Senate Democrats have foisted on this country.”
Paul Ryan has dodged or refused to comment on many things the rich asshole does, from incendiary tweets and disparaging vulgarities about African countries, but he did join the conga line of praise that the rich asshole hosted at the White House after passage of the GOP’s billionaire-targeted tax bill, citing the rich asshole’s “exquisite presidential leadership.”
Another thing Ryan likely found exquisite was the $500,000 he collected in campaign contributions from billionaire Charles Koch and his wife days after the bill’s passage.
Later Sunday afternoon, as he left a meeting with other Senate moderates, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was asked about the ad and said it was “over the top.”
“I don’t know whose idea that was, but I don’t think it’s going to be well received,” he said, according to HuffPost reporter Igor Bobic. “The ad is definitely over the top.”
This is a breaking news story that has been updated as new information emerged.
Ex-federal prosecutor: Shutdown gridlock is thanks to a president who is ‘out to lunch all the time’
Nick Akerman -- MSNBC screenshot
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Following an impromptu press conference held by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), saying Congressional leaders are trying to cobble out some type of compromise that will get the government funded again, a former federal prosecutor said the problem is President some rich asshole is sitting on his hands and doing nothing.
Speaking with MSNBC’s David Gura, former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman was gobsmacked by the glaring absence of the president in getting a deal done that would satisfy whatever it is he is looking for.
“I think the real mistrust here is between the executive branch and everybody else,” Akerman began. “We do not have a president that’s leading. We do not have a president coming out with a firm policy that’s taking a leadership role and pulling all the parties together here.”
“I mean, this is a first in American history,” the exasperated ex-prosecutor exclaimed. “I can’t think of any other circumstance in our republic where we’ve had a president who’s basically taken a back seat and is out to lunch all the time. You can’t trust him one day to the next as to what he’s for, what he’s against.”
“He started this whole problem by basically eliminating the DACA that President Obama put in place,” Akerman stated. “Yeah, he’s the one that started this. He could have had this whole problem solved months ago; we never had to get to this spot. It’s only because we have an incompetent in the White House, a lack of leadership from the White House. I don’t care who the staff people are, you can blame all the staff people you want. But as Harry Truman said, ‘the buck stops’ with the president.”
Watch the video below via MSNBC:
Sad the rich asshole spent day watching videos of himself attacking Obama for last shutdown
"The president's the leader and he's got to get everybody in a room and he's got to lead," citizen the rich asshole said.
The federal government, as of Sunday morning, remains closed, with no real apparent talks underway to reopen it.
On Saturday evening, The New York Times, citing a White House aide, said that President some rich asshole spent the day frustrated and angry, watching videos of himself in 2013 attacking President Obama’s leadership during the shutdown that happened that year:
On Saturday, the president was left alternately defiant and angry, self-pitying and frustrated. He argued to aides that he did not deserve the blame he was taking, but without a credible deal on the table, there was little for him to do. Irritated to have missed his big event in Florida, some rich asshole spent much of his day watching old TV clips of him berating President Barack Obama for a lack of leadership during the 2013 government shutdown, a White House aide said, seeming content to sit back and watch the show.
Senate Democrats have laid a credible deal on the table, to fund the government in a bipartisan manner and providing a legislative solution to young people starkly affected by the rich asshole’s decision last September to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. However, the White House has refused to even talk to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who said that the White House had “not called” him that day. Neither the rich asshole nor White House Chief of Staff John Kelly have called Schumer as of Sunday morning.
The irony is that in one of those videos from 2013, the rich asshole told Fox and Friends the president has to lead and solve problems during a shutdown or deserves the blame:
Problems start from the top and have to get solved from the top and the president’s the leader and he’s got to get everybody in a room and he’s got to lead. And he doesn’t do that. In 25 years and 50 years and 100 years from now, when the government — they talk about the government shutdown, they’re going to be talking about the president of the United States. Who was the president at that time? They’re not going to be talking who the head of the House was, the head of the Senate.
He told Greta Van Susteren the same thing:
#TBT to when Trump lectured President Obama about how to negotiate a deal to prevent a government shutdown, saying “the president has to lead.” “You have to get everybody in a room” to get a deal because it’s “good for the country.”
Yet in a Sunday morning tweet, the rich asshole continued to flail about with no real solutions for the shutdown, contending that Republicans are fighting for the military, and proposing that the Senate pass a full budget by throwing out the rules and adopting the so-called “nuclear option”:
He continued to blame the Democrats for the shutdown. Yet on Friday evening, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) needed 60 votes to pass a continuing resolution and keep the government open. He lost four of his Republican colleagues in that last vote, meaning he didn’t even have a simple majority to avert the shutdown. So the Senate attempting “the nuclear option” would not even solve the problem.
the rich asshole again attempted to pit the military against the Democrats, but Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), a disabled veteran, was having none of it on Saturday evening. “I will not be lectured about what our military needs by a five-deferment draft dodger,” she said.
I will not be lectured about what our military needs by a five-deferment draft dodger. twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
And the rich asshole’s implication that Republicans are the ones working hard to solve the budget stalemate is even more problematic given the moves the White House made during the first 36 hours of the shutdown.
What the rich asshole did Saturday was to release a campaign ad that said Democrats who oppose his demand for a border wall “will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants.”
The blame game extends to the most direct way the White House has to speak with the American people: Calling an official White House phone number yields a message that says the call cannot be answered because “congressional Democrats are holding government funding hostage.”
If you call the White House comment line this is the message you'll hear:
"Thank you for calling the White House. Unfortunately, we cannot answer your call today because congressional Democrats are holding government funding…hostage"buzzfeed.com/tanyachen/the-…
And the White House released what appeared to be obviously staged photo-ops of the president on the phone and laughing with White House staff. What we’re not seeing are photos of him in a room with everyone, trying to nail down a deal.
In fact, it seems that the rich asshole sees the shutdown as a positive thing for his administration. He called it a “nice present” from Democrats on Twitter Saturday morning. And on Saturday evening, Eric the rich asshole, who is ostensibly focused on running the rich asshole business and not being a White House surrogate, told Fox News, “Honestly, I think it’s a good thing for us.”
NYT political analyst: ‘Diminished’ the rich asshole is hiding from shutdown mess ‘holed up in the White House’
MSNBC contributor Jeremy Peters (Screen capture)
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On Saturday, New York Times political analyst Jeremy Peters said that President the rich asshole is allowing himself and his office to be “diminished” in importance as the president spends the government shutdown crisis “holed up in the White House.”
Peters said that the necessary parties are “not communicating” with each other and need to stop “shouting at each other from the Senate floor.”
“Oddly, the president seems somewhat diminished throughout this entire process,” said Peters. “He’s somebody that holds himself up as a master negotiator, but he’s been largely invisible. He hasn’t made a statement, he hasn’t appeared in public.”
“He’s been holed up in the White House as all of this unfolds on Capitol Hill,” Peters said.
The New York Times said Sunday that the rich asshole spent most of Saturday ignoring the crisis and watching old videos of himself trashing then-President Barack Obama during the 2013 shutdown.
The president is reportedly annoyed that he has been forced to miss a black tie fundraiser at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort and blames the shutdown mess for keeping him in Washington.
Watch the video, embedded below:
the rich asshole calls for Republicans to trigger 'nuclear option' if stalemate continues
BY REBECCA SAVRANSKY - 01/21/18 07:44 AM EST
President the rich asshole on Sunday called for Senate Republicans to trigger the so-called nuclear option if the government shutdown continues and pass a long-term budget with 51 votes.
"Great to see how hard Republicans are fighting for our Military and Safety at the Border. The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked," the rich asshole tweeted.
"If stalemate continues, Republicans should go to 51% (Nuclear Option) and vote on real, long term budget, no C.R.’s!" he added, referring to a stopgap spending measure known as a continuing resolution.
Great to see how hard Republicans are fighting for our Military and Safety at the Border. The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked. If stalemate continues, Republicans should go to 51% (Nuclear Option) and vote on real, long term budget, no C.R.’s!
The nuclear option would involve changing Senate rules to allow legislation to pass with a simple majority instead of 60 votes.
Lawmakers in both parties are fighting hard for an edge in the blame game over the government shutdown.
Republicans are branding it the “Schumer Shutdown,” in reference to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and think they have a strong hand because Senate Democrats rejected a continuing resolution passed by the House that would have kept the government open.
Democrats, meanwhile, are pointing to the rich asshole. Schumer said Democrats can't negotiate a deal with a president who changes his position from hour to hour and is beholden to right-wing supporters above his own priorities.
On Saturday, the rich asshole said Democrats were "holding out Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration."
He retweeted that post early Sunday.
— This report was last updated at 8:00 a.m.
Biographer: the rich asshole’s ‘phantom negotiation’ techniques in shutdown show he’s ‘playing one side off of the other’
the rich asshole biographer Michael D'Antonio on CNN (Screen capture)
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President some rich asshole is “playing one side against the other” in shutdown talks, said biographer Michael D’Antonio, author of The Truth About the rich asshole.
D’Antonio looked at the rich asshole’s shifting positions and said that there are two ways the rich asshole handles a crisis. There was the disciplined, hyper-involved the rich asshole who fought his way back from bankruptcy in the 1990s.
The other the rich asshole is the one we’re seeing now, D’Antonio said, who makes offers that evaporate after he makes them as he did with a prospective deal with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Friday night.
“This phantom negotiation where you think you’ve seen something or grasped something and it disappears,” D’Antonio said. “That’s what he does when he’s playing one side off of another.”
“In this instance, he’s going to play Chuck Schumer and then he’s going to listen to his advisers and play to his base,” D’Antonio predicted. “This is very consistent with the second the rich asshole model and it’s something he’s done more and more over the years.”
“I think we’re seeing the limits of his kind of deal-making in government,” the author said.
Watch the video, embedded below:
the rich asshole may want Democrats to reject border wall so he can attack them for it in 2018: WSJ reporter
Wall Street Journal political reporter Eli Stokols on MSNBC (Screen capture)
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On Sunday, White House reporter Eli Stokols of The Wall Street Journal laid bare what he thinks President the rich asshole might actually be hoping will happen in the shutdown debate.
After Sen. Chuck Schumer offered $20 billion to the rich asshole’s fund to build a southern border wall, the rich asshole’s rejection, said Stokols, indicates that the president knows the wall is more useful to him as campaign rhetoric than an actual structure.
“Twenty billion dollars for a border wall, that’s a lot of money,” Stokols told Kasie Hunt of MSNBC’s “Kasie D.C.” on Sunday. “So, why doesn’t he want that?”
“You have to step back and look at the inaction from the White House,” he said, “and the way that this president, whether he’s a weather vane or whether there’s some calculation to it, whatever it is.”
“All the whiplash and the mixed signals leading up to the shutdown, you have to step back and wonder,” he said, “if Schumer put $20 billion on the table and they said no, you have to ask yourself, ‘Does this president want to build a wall or do they want to retain that issue and run and say, Democrats wouldn’t let them build this wall?'”
Watch the video, embedded below:
the rich asshole Appointed A 24-Year-Old Who Has A History Of Not Showing Up For Work
some rich asshole vowed as a presidential candidate to surround himself with “only with the best and most serious people” if elected, but that’s not what happened after he took the oath of office. Candidate the rich asshole also promised to win the fight against the epidemic of opioid drug use but offered no new steps to do so.
the rich asshole then hired a 23-year-old former campaign worker to a top position in the White House’s drug policy office and now it’s revealed that he had been let go from a job at a law firm because he repeatedly missed work, a partner at the firm said, according to The Washington Post.
Taylor Weyeneth, who is now 24, worked as a legal assistant while at college at the New York firm O’Dwyer & Bernstein.
Before Weyeneth was appointed deputy chief of staff at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, he was “discharged” in August 2015, according to the Post.
“We were very disappointed in what happened,” partner Brian O’Dwyer told the Post.
He told the Post that the firm put in time to train Weyeneth, but he “just didn’t show,” O’Dwyer said.
The résumé Wyeneth initially submitted to the government said that he worked at the firm until April 2016. However, when an FBI official called in as part of a background check in January 2017, the firm said Weyeneth had left eight months earlier than what was claimed in the résumé.
The Washington Post reports:
A spokesman at the Office of National Drug Control Policy — where Weyeneth, 24, is deputy chief of staff — said Weyeneth was unavailable for comment. In replies to The Post, the White House did not address questions about Weyeneth’s work at the law firm.An administration official previously said that Weyeneth revised his résumé to correct “errors.” In a revised résumé, Weyeneth said he worked at the law firm from November 2014 to August 2015. Details of his time there and the circumstances of his departure have not been previously reported.
The opioid epidemic has swept across the U.S. One the rich asshole voter, Kraig Moss, a grief-stricken father who lost his son to heroin addiction, expressed regrets last year. He campaigned hard for the rich asshole, selling everything he had, grabbed his guitar, and hit the campaign trail because he thought the former reality show star would help heroin addicts like his son. In total, Moss attended 45 rallies and played pro-the rich asshole country tunes.
After the Trumpcare bill was proposed, Mr. Moss realized that it was “an absolute betrayal of what the rich asshole represented on the campaign trail.”
And now the rich asshole has hired a kid who doesn’t show up to work to take care of the drug epidemic. We’re going to go out on a limb here to suggest that the rich asshole is not taking this problem seriously.
We can see why the rich asshole chose Weyeneth since the so-called president repeatedly misses work, too, and can be seen on the golf course or at his resort in Florida.
the rich asshole’s Son Just Admitted They Think The Shutdown ‘Is A Good Thing For Us’ (VIDEO)
some rich asshole really wants to shift the blame for the government shutdown onto Democrats, even though he has a history of calling for a ‘good shutdown.’ So, one of the former reality show star’s dumb sons appeared on ex-Judge Jeanine Pirro’s show to explain that the shutdown is really ‘a good thing for us’ even though hundreds of thousands of federal employees were furloughed.
“Honestly, I think it’s a good thing for us,” Eric the rich asshole told Pirro on Fox News’s “Justice with Judge Jeanine.”
“People see through it,” he continued. “I mean, people have seen a year that’s incredible. It’s been filled with nothing but the best for our country, ‘America First’ policies, and they’re happy with where we are as a nation.”
“The only reason [Democrats] want to shut down the government is to distract and to stop his momentum,” Liddle Eric said. “My father has had incredible momentum. He’s gotten more done in one year than arguably any president in history. How do [Democrats] divert from that message?”
“They obstruct, they distract, they try to place blame,” he said while assigning blame to the Democrats.
Eric called his father the “hardest working person I’ve ever met in my life. He has the Democrats absolutely terrified.”
Watch:
the rich asshole has the lowest approval rating of any president in the history of polling. We’re pretty sure that if “he’s gotten more done in one year than arguably any president in history” the Trumps wouldn’t need to keep pointing out that alternative fact.
In May of 2017, the rich asshole called for a “shutdown.”
“either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%,” the so-called president tweeted. “Our country needs a good “shutdown” in September to fix mess!”
Eric’s reasons for the shutdown being a good thing are: the rich asshole has Democrats shaking in their boots because he’s accomplished so much. the rich asshole is the best president ever, even though while only on the job for one year, the government is shut down, sort of like how the rich asshole steaks, the rich asshole vodka, etc, were shut down. the rich asshole is putting ‘American first,’ so shutting down the American government is somehow a ‘good thing’ for his father.
We know that none of this makes sense but no one ever accused Eric of being smart.
Pirro tried to slam the Women’s march even though some rich asshole was sure it was a celebration of his achievements.
‘This ain’t Lost’: Kate McKinnon is mind-blowing as Robert Mueller on SNL
SNL's Kate McKinnon as special counsel Robert Mueller on "Weekend Update" (Screen capture)
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On this week’s edition of “Weekend Update” on “Saturday Night Live,” Kate McKinnon did a mind-blowing, gender-bending turn as special counsel Robert Mueller.
Introduced by anchor Colin Jost, McKinnon chewed a toothpick and mugged for the camera like a G-man from a 1940s gangster film.
“Thank you, Colin, it’s an honor to be here,” McKinnon as Mueller said. “I just wanted to assure the American people that our investigation is progressing smoothly. We’re looking forward to a timely and orderly conclusion.”
He went on to imply a number of things without ever coming out and confirming a single detail.
“I wanna tell ya so bad, but I can’t,” Mueller said. “I’m having a blast, man.”
“You know how you loved the show ‘Lost,’ but it never really came together,” he said. “There was no satisfying ending.”
“This ain’t ‘Lost,'” he quipped.
Watch the video, embedded below:
January 21, 2018
Lisa Mascaro
Tribune Washington Bureau
Posted with permission from Tribune Content Agency
WASHINGTON — As a government shutdown entered its second day Sunday, Congress and President Donald Trump were poised to face deepening criticism unless they made a deal to reopen the government before the workweek begins.
A rare weekend schedule continued on Capitol Hill, with voting possible, but negotiations over a possible stopgap measure appeared stalemated along partisan lines.
Uncertainty over whether the shutdown would extend into Monday and beyond created hardship for many of the 2.3 million federal employees who don't yet know if their offices will be closed and if they will lose pay.
It was either the Trump shutdown or the Schumer shutdown, depending on whether the blame came from Republicans backing the president or from Democrats standing with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y.
Trump weighed in early Sunday by blaming Democrats for the impasse and urging Senate Republicans to change the rules to allow debate to end with a simple majority, not the 60 votes now required.
"If stalemate continues," Trump wrote on Twitter, Republicans should use the "nuclear option" to change Senate rules and try to pass a long-term spending bill with a simple majority.
But after a day of finger-pointing but little apparent progress Saturday, there was no sign Sunday morning of any intervention by the White House to end the partisan standoff.
One proposal, to temporarily fund the government through Feb. 8, was being pushed for a Sunday vote by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
But without the consent of all senators, complicated Senate rules would not allow a roll call until 1 a.m. Monday, adding to the sense of chaos and confusion.
"Shutdowns have consequences," McConnell said as he closed Saturday's Senate session without a resolution to the standoff.
Communications broke down between Trump and Schumer after the minority leader complained that the president backed out of an emerging deal before the midnight Friday deadline to fund the government, and said it was like negotiating "with Jell-O."
Instead, rank-and-file lawmakers began taking action on their own.
A bipartisan group of 19 senators met behind privately to try to reach a compromise, and a similarly mixed group of Republicans and Democrats met in the House. But those efforts have yet to produce a solution.
The shutdown began at midnight Friday when Democrats in the Senate, joined by a few of Republicans, blocked a House-passed bill to temporarily fund the government for four weeks.
The federal government has been running on a series of four stopgap funding bills since the 2018 fiscal year began Oct. 1 because Congress cannot agree on budget levels.
Republicans, who are the majority in the House and Senate, want increased military funding, and Democrats insist on parity for other federal operations.
The Republican hold on the Senate is slim, just 51 seats, while 60 votes are typically needed to break a filibuster and pass most legislation. So Democrats, who hold 49 seats, used their leverage to demand concessions on budgeting, immigration and other issues.
Tops on the Democrats' priority list is legislation to protect young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children from deportation before the administration ends the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows them two-year permits to work and live in the United States.
The young immigrants have flooded Capitol Hill offices since Trump announced he would end the Obama administration's DACA program in March and asked Congress to develop a solution.
But Trump, and Republicans, also want a overhaul of immigration law to reduce the flow of legal migrants as well as stem the flow of illegal immigration. Democrats say the White House demands go beyond the outlines of an initial, more limited deal to protect DACA beneficiaries in exchange for more border security.
Immigration advocates fear deportations of the young immigrants will rise as the temporary permits expire and the administration fights to end DACA in court.
"You ask me how they're doing? I think they are terrified," Rep. Luis Correa, D-Calif., said of the young immigrants. "This is not a scenario anybody expected."
Lawmakers on both sides also want to extend the Children's Health Insurance Program, provide more disaster assistance to states hit hard by hurricanes and wildfires, and focus on other issues that have bipartisan backing.
Chuck Todd busts the rich asshole official for disowning racist ad: ‘some rich asshole for President is an outside group?’
Chuck Todd (NBC/screen grab)
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White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short tried to distance the White House from an advertisement being run by the the rich asshole campaign alleging that Democrats are “complicit” in murders committed by undocumented immigrants.
During an interview on Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd asked Short how running an ad blaming Democrats for murders is “helping a negotiation today” to reopen the government. Since the ad was created by the the rich asshole campaign, it ends with President the rich asshole saying that he “supports this message” as is required by law.
“You’re calling Democrats accomplices to potential murders,” Todd said.
“You know that ad was produced by an outside group,” Short replied.
“some rich asshole for President is an outside group?” Todd interrupted.
“It’s not done — it’s done from a political organization,” short insisted. “It’s not done by people working inside the White House.”
Watch the video below from NBC.
"You know that ad was created by an outside group... it's not done from people working inside the White House," @Marcshort45 says on an ad attacking Democrats which was paid for by Donald J. Trump for President. #MTP
the rich asshole’s Party Guests ‘Traumatized’ After Having To Use Plastic Spoons For Caviar
You know how the rich asshole likes to say that he is the President of “average Joes” across the country? Well, that might be true — after all, he serves caviar with plastic spoons just like the rest of us.
As you’re probably aware, the rich asshole bemoaned the fact that the government shutdown he and his party caused made him have to miss his big election anniversary extravaganza at the Mar-a-Lago.
While his sons Don Jr. and Eric filled in for him, the rich asshole’s guests were less than pleased with their $100k-$250k price of admission because they’re spoiled rich jerks.
“I hate to do this, but this is a total disgrace, shame on Mar-a-Lago, you can’t serve caviar with plastic spoons!” a horrified guest posted on Instagram. “Please offer your caviar with mother of pearl spoons and dishes.”
“Wait until you see the accompaniments,” the guest wrote, adding that she is still “traumatized.”
You ready to see these “horrific” accompaniments? Of course you are:
Mar-a-Lago guests paying $100k or more per couple to attend Trump’s inauguration anniversary political fundraising fala—which Eric & Don Jr attended in President Trump’s stead due to the shutdown—are apparent “traumatized” by scooping caviar with plastic spoons. pic.twitter.com/vcwcExYpX2
Before you assume that the rich asshole’s supporters are spoiled rich jackasses, put yourself in their shoes for a moment: when you eat caviar, don’t you want your blini and mini-toasts to be top tier? What is this, Communist China? Worse yet, they probably used sour cream instead of crème fraiche.
It’s strange that anyone would want to eat the food at the “Winter White House” to begin with, as the Mar-a-Lago kitchen was recently cited for multiple violations, including expired curry, warm milk, raw fish for sushi that had not undergone parasite destruction, and storing hot dogs on the floor, and more.
It is unclear if the Caviar, like the rich asshole’s masters, was Russian.
BY BRETT SAMUELS - 01/21/18 10:07 AM EST
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Sunday expressed opposition to using the “nuclear option” to allow the Senate to pass a long-term budget with 51 votes.
“The Republican Conference opposes changing the rules on legislation,” a spokesman for McConnell said.
President the rich asshole earlier Sunday suggested Republicans should deploy the tactic if the Senate is unable to come to an agreement to fund the government.
Doing so would allow the party, which holds 51 seats in the Senate, to pass legislation without a single Democratic vote.
Great to see how hard Republicans are fighting for our Military and Safety at the Border. The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked. If stalemate continues, Republicans should go to 51% (Nuclear Option) and vote on real, long term budget, no C.R.’s!
The issue came up on the second day of a partial government shutdown. Each party has steadfastly blamed the other for the ongoing shutdown.
Republicans have labeled it the “Schumer Shutdown,” in reference to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), while Democrats have pointed to the rich asshole and Republicans, who have majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Republicans might not have enough votes to pass a funding bill along strict party lines. Four Republicans voted against the legislation on Friday night. Five Democrats voted for it.
Lindsey Graham wants anti-immigration nut Stephen Miller booted from negotiations: ‘We are going nowhere’
Composite image, Photo of President some rich asshole by Flicker User Michael Vadon and screengrab of White House political adviser Stephen Miller.
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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Sunday warned that President some rich asshole’s hard-right policy adviser Stephen Miller was preventing legislation that could end the current government shutdown.
On day two of President the rich asshole’s first government shutdown, Graham told reporters that he was hopeful for a Sunday “breakthrough” that could re-open the government.
But he also cautioned that the rich asshole policy adviser Stephen Miller could kill any immigration deal. Graham suspects Miller is responsible for scuttling an earlier deal on so-called Dreamers after the rich asshole had agreed to it.
“Every time we have a proposal, it is only yanked back by staff members. As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating on immigration, we are going nowhere,” Graham reportedly said.
Walking into moderates meeting, Graham blasts WH staff, and calls out Stephen Miller by name, for undercutting president by pitching proposals he doesn’t support
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