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The Trump Presidency 13: The (James) Baker's Dozen

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Captain_Swoop said:
Trump tweets

The Republican Party will become the Party of Great HealthCare! ObamaCare is a disaster, far too expensive and deductibility ridiculously high - virtually unusable! Moving forward in Courts and Legislatively!
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Doesn’t parallelism require that that be written as “Moving forward Courtly and Legislatively.”
 
Captain_Swoop said:
The Latest: Trump backs off Special Olympics funding cut

President Donald Trump says he is backing off a budget request to cut funding for the Special Olympics, after days of criticism.

Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday, “I’ve overridden my people for funding the Special Olympics.”

https://apnews.com/ad407969d8534a7497f39122fda616a9
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Are "my people" the same as "my African-American"?
 
Captain_Swoop said:
The Latest: Trump backs off Special Olympics funding cut

President Donald Trump says he is backing off a budget request to cut funding for the Special Olympics, after days of criticism.

Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday, “I’ve overridden my people for funding the Special Olympics.”

https://apnews.com/ad407969d8534a7497f39122fda616a9
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DeVos backpedals after Trump reversal

After Trump spoke, DeVos immediately released a statement saying:

"I am pleased and grateful the President and I see eye-to-eye on this issue and that he has decided to fund our Special Olympics grant. This is funding I have fought for behind the scenes over the last several years."
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Heh.
 
Ladewig said:
I think the answer lies somewhere between Orwell and Mencken.

“We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.”
“No one in this world, so far as I know ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people”[/QUOTE]

Amen to that! If ever there was proof of this, it's the election of 2016.
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Checkmite said:
Captain_Swoop said:
The Latest: Trump backs off Special Olympics funding cut

President Donald Trump says he is backing off a budget request to cut funding for the Special Olympics, after days of criticism.

Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday, “I’ve overridden my people for funding the Special Olympics.”

https://apnews.com/ad407969d8534a7497f39122fda616a9
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DeVos backpedals after Trump reversal

After Trump spoke, DeVos immediately released a statement saying:

"I am pleased and grateful the President and I see eye-to-eye on this issue and that he has decided to fund our Special Olympics grant. This is funding I have fought for behind the scenes over the last several years."
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Heh.
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Not that anyone believes the hateful slimeball, but I have to wonder why she would have had to fight "behind the scenes".

Was she afraid that someone might think she wasn't hateful enough?

Not much chance of that.
 
More evidence that Trump's lied about his finances all his life:
When Donald Trump wanted to make a good impression — on a lender, a business partner, or a journalist — he sometimes sent them official-looking documents called “Statements of Financial Condition.”

These documents sometimes ran up to 20 pages. They were full of numbers, laying out Trump’s properties, debts and multibillion-dollar net worth.

But, for someone trying to get a true picture of Trump’s net worth, the documents were deeply flawed. Some simply omitted properties that carried big debts. Some assets were overvalued. And some key numbers were wrong.

For instance, Trump’s financial statement for 2011 said he had 55 home lots to sell at his golf course in Southern California. Those lots would sell for $3 million or more, the statement said.

But Trump had only 31 lots zoned and ready for sale at the course, according to city records. He claimed credit for 24 lots — and at least $72 million in future revenue — he didn’t have.

He also claimed his Virginia vineyard had 2,000 acres, when it really has about 1,200. He said Trump Tower has 68 stories. It has 58.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/grap...nances-100pm:homepage/story-ans&noredirect=on
 
johnny karate said:
You know, I don’t want to think that Republicans are evil super villains, but dammit, they make it really difficult sometimes.
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FTFY. A bit more seriously, though... it's quite worth noting that a lot of the actual Republican base are people with plenty of good qualities, but are having their weaknesses exploited shamelessly. Another part, of course, is rather deplorable in general. Sure seems like the deplorable in general ones are the ones that get to the top, though.

Anyways, Checkmite beat me posting about the reversal, but... Here's a bit more context.

However, DeVos has proposed the elimination twice before and lawmakers have rejected it, appropriating $17.6 million for the Special Olympics last year as part of an overall funding increase for the department.
The secretary has pointed to the fact that she's requesting $13.2 billion for grants to states under the department's Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and another $225.6 million for teacher preparation, research and technical assistance to support children with disabilities. These requests would maintain level funding for the department's core special education programs.
Overall, DeVos' proposed budget would eliminate 29 programs for an annual savings of $6.7 billion. Some are duplicative, have achieved their original purpose, are narrowly focused, or unable to demonstrate their effectiveness, according to a department budget document.
Trump publicly challenged his Cabinet heads last year to make 5% budget cuts.
At the hearing, DeVos repeated what she told the House committee earlier in the week, saying that Congress has rejected her previous requests to reduce her department's budget.
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So... this is just one more thing that got lost in the noise over the past couple years.

Also from that article, though...

Democrats also criticized the secretary for not doing more to help defrauded student borrowers who are waiting for their loan forgiveness applications to be processed.
About 140,000 people have applications pending. Many have been waiting for years as DeVos fought to block the Obama-era rule from going into effect. She wants to rewrite it to ensure taxpayers aren't paying to cancel loans for students who weren't actually harmed by their colleges.
But a court ordered the department to implement the rule, known as "borrower defense," in October. People can apply if they believe their school inflated job placement numbers, for example, or misled them about a program's accreditation.
"There's nothing stopping you from providing full relief to struggling borrowers today. Surely there must be some of those borrowers who you feel deserve a full discharge," said Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray.
When the senator asked DeVos how many claims had been processed since the court order, the secretary said she did not know -- though she said that the department is "reviewing them regularly."
Murray, who has previously asked for the number in writing, was not satisfied with that response.
"It appears to me we haven't moved forward at all on this and that's not fair to the students or their families or their future," Murray said.
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If only I could laugh at the sheer gall. Speaking of gall, looks like there are unintended side effects of the reversal on the ACA.

Prosecutors claim in Esformes’ indictment that the health care executive paid kickbacks to health providers “in exchange for medically unnecessary referrals” to Esformes’ facilities. Esformes and co-conspirators then allegedly submitted “false and fraudulent claims to Medicare and Medicaid in an approximate amount of $1 billion for services that were medically unnecessary, never provided, and procured through the payment of kickbacks and bribes.” All of Esformes’ co-conspirators plead guilty, according to the Miami Herald.

On Wednesday, Esformes’ lawyers filed a motion in a federal court in Florida arguing that the case against their client must be dismissed — effectively ruining three years of work by prosecutors — because “the Justice Department has admitted that the health care offenses at issue in this trial are unconstitutional.” Alternatively, Esformes’ legal team suggests that the judge should declare a mistrial.

The problem arises because O’Connor did not simply strike down the core provisions of the Affordable Care Act. He declared that every single provision of the law is invalid, including relatively minor provisions amending the statutes governing Medicare fraud and kickbacks paid to health providers. Though Esformes alleged actions may also be illegal under the unamended versions of those statutes, Esformes was charged under the amended versions.
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Trump, giving aid and comfort to fraudsters. Again. Speaking of Trump... this -

Yesterday, in a Fox News interview, President Trump accused Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and those assisting his investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, of “treason” and an attempted coup, and threatened a counter-investigation and long prison terms for those who investigated him.
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Rather needs quite a bit of pushback. This is absolutely a line that we should not allow to be crossed. Speaking of things that really should be getting pushback... Overriding experts, Trump administration approves plan to sell secret nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. Yep. That's STILL going through and being pushed hard by people with rather blatant conflicts of interest. For that matter, this is a Republican plot that's remarkably close to what they've been trying to pin on Hillary with the Uranium 1 nonsense.
 
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phiwum said:
I tend to think the report will be released reasonably soon, but I am concerned that the redactions are likely to include passages that are merely embarrassing or shameful. It will be tough to know whether that's the case when we see the release.
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My concern is a little different. Barr will not want to release any information about people who will not be indicted - I think that's already DoJ policy. But it is all the wrongdoing whirling around Dump that is of great importance. I believe Dump when he asserts the *he* didn't collude because he's to dumb to plan such an action. Some of the people around him certainly did (*cough* Don, Jr *ouch*) and I would like to see them held to account.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
He goes back to claiming he has a plan. And guess what? He's calling a meeting with the GOP to find out what that plan is. :mad:
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I haven't heard his announcement saying that he had a plan. In fact, I think he said the meeting was to discuss the GOP plan ... which is like discussing what color unicorn tails are.
 
SezMe said:
You *must* be exaggerating.
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My source for those numbers.

For instance, if someone is found guilty of the theft of agricultural animals, they face a mandatory $10,000 fine per count. Drug trafficking is a major moneymaker for the state, at least on paper. Upon conviction for drug trafficking, defendants face a mandatory fine of $25,000 to $500,000 per count. As a result, anyone convicted of the crime could likely owe thousands of dollars before they gain the right to vote.
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Another guide to Trump's real crimes:
The lesson of the Mueller investigation isn’t that Trump is less treacherous than his critics feared. It’s that he’s more treacherous. He’s been selling out his country to a series of dictators. Don’t take it from me. Don’t even take it from Mueller. It’s all in the public record, one damning story after another. Here are four of them.
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https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/03/trumps-treachery-goes-way-beyond-russia.html
 
The Latest: Trump backs off Special Olympics funding cut

President Donald Trump says he is backing off a budget request to cut funding for the Special Olympics, after days of criticism.

Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday, “I’ve overridden my people for funding the Special Olympics.”
Click to expand...
Sadly, its not the only time this week that Trump has tried to brag about how he "supports" some popular program, even after trying to cut its funding.

From: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/29/18286781/trump-michigan-rally-great-lakes
"I support the Great Lakes. Always have. They are beautiful. They are big, very deep. Record deepness, right? And I am going to get, in honor of my friends, full funding of $300 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which you have been trying to get for over 30 years. So, we will get it done."
...
In fact, less than a month ago, his administration proposed a budget that would’ve reduced funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, from $300 million to just $30 million.
 
Segnosaur said:
From: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/29/18286781/trump-michigan-rally-great-lakes
"I support the Great Lakes. Always have. They are beautiful. They are big, very deep. Record deepness, right? And I am going to get, in honor of my friends, full funding of $300 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which you have been trying to get for over 30 years. So, we will get it done."
...
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Does it really need to be added that he's completely wrong? In terms of depth, none of the Great Lakes are even in the top 30.
#1 is in Russia. I guess none of his friends ever mentioned it during meetings.
 
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