(04-04-2017, 09:14 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: So how about that ridiculous publicity stunt of giving his paycheck to the NPS?

A little over $78k, huh? How many of those checks would be needed to make up for the proposed cuts to the NPS that, based on the cuts to the DoI, would result in a $360 million budget cut for NPS? That would be more than 4716 of those checks to cover that. 900 years of gross salary for the POTUS at current levels.

Quote:Bannon Removed From National Security Council Role in Shakeup

[url=http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-administration-floats-compromise-on-health-care/ar-BBzixR1?ocid=edgsp][/url]

© MIKE THEILER/AFP/Getty Images Chief strategist Steve Bannon took the National Security Council post at the beginning of Trump's administration.President Donald Trump reorganized his National Security Council on Wednesday, removing his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, and downgrading the role of his Homeland Security Adviser, Tom Bossert, according to a person familiar with the decision and a regulatory filing.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster was given responsibility for setting the agenda for meetings of the NSC or the Homeland Security Council, and was authorized to delegate that authority to Bossert, at his discretion, according to the filing.

Under the move, the national intelligence director, Dan Coats, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, are again "regular attendees" of the NSC’s principals committee.

Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News, was elevated to the National Security Council’s principals committee at the beginning of Trump’s presidency. The move drew criticism from some members of Congress and Washington’s foreign policy establishment.

Donald Trump kicks off Sexual Assault Awareness Month by defending Bill O'Reilly https://t.co/JtxrlgRUIA pic.twitter.com/5D3qbMK12r

— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) April 5, 2017

Quote:Obama Seeks Approval by Congress for Strike in Syria


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By PETER BAKER and JONATHAN WEISMAN
AUGUST 31, 2013

WASHINGTON — President Obama abruptly changed course on Saturday and postponed a military strike against the Syrian government in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack so he could seek authorization first from a deeply skeptical Congress.
In one of the riskiest gambles of his presidency, Mr. Obama effectively dared lawmakers to either stand by him or, as he put it, allow President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to get away with murdering children with unconventional weapons. By asking them to take a stand, Mr. Obama tried to break out of the isolation of the last week as he confronted taking action without the support of the United Nations, Congress, the public or Britain, a usually reliable partner in such international operations.

“I’m prepared to give that order,” Mr. Obama said in a hurriedly organized appearance in the Rose Garden as American destroyers armed with Tomahawk missiles waited in the Mediterranean Sea. “But having made my decision as commander in chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interests, I’m also mindful that I’m the president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.”

Although Congressional leaders hailed his decision to seek the permission of lawmakers who had been clamoring for a say, the turnabout leaves Mr. Obama at the political mercy of House Republicans, many of whom have opposed him at every turn and have already suggested that Syria’s civil war does not pose a threat to the United States. His decision raises the possibility that he would be the first president in modern times to lose a vote on the use of force, much as Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain did in Parliament last week.
Mr. Obama overruled the advice of many of his aides who worried about just such a defeat, and Republican Congressional officials said Saturday that if a vote were taken immediately, the Republican-controlled House would not support action. Interviews with more than a dozen members of Congress made clear that the situation was volatile even in the Senate, where Democrats have a majority.
[url=https://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/world/middleeast/syria.html?referer=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2F#modal-lightbox]
President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. before Mr. Obama’s remarks Saturday.
MICHAEL REYNOLDS / EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

“Obama hasn’t got a chance to win this vote if he can’t win the majority of his own party, and I doubt he can,” Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a leading Republican, said in an interview. “Democrats have been conspicuously silent. Just about his only support is coming from Republicans. He is a war president without a war party.”

Yet the debate may also put on display the divisions in the Republican Party between traditional national security hawks and a newer generation of lawmakers, particularly in the House, resistant to entanglements overseas and distrustful of Mr. Obama.

“It will be an uphill battle for the president to convince me because I think he has handled this entire situation quite poorly,” said Representative Tim Griffin, Republican of Arkansas. “And frankly I am reluctant to give him a license for war when, with all due respect, I have little confidence he knows what he is doing.”

Even Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, two Republicans who have pressed Mr. Obama to intervene more aggressively in Syria, said Saturday that they might vote no because the president’s plan was too limited. “We cannot in good conscience support isolated military strikes in Syria that are not part of an overall strategy that can change the momentum on the battlefield,” they said in a statement.

Against that backdrop, the wording of the authorization of force may be critical. White House officials drafted a proposed measure that tried to strike a balance between being too expansive and too restrictive, and sent it to Congress on Saturday evening.

The proposal would empower Mr. Obama to order military action to “prevent or deter the use or proliferation” of chemical or biological weapons “within, to or from Syria” and to “protect the United States and its allies and partners against the threat posed by such weapons.” Still, White House officials indicated that Mr. Obama might still authorize force even if Congress rejected it.

President Vladimir V. Putin, in Vladivostok on Saturday, said it did not make sense that Syria would use chemical weapons.
ALEXEI NIKOLSKYI / RIA NOVOSTI, VIA REUTERS

As Syrian forces braced for attack, the president’s decision effectively put it off for more than a week, since Congress is not due back in Washington until Sept. 9. Mr. Obama did not push for Congress to come back sooner, and House leaders opted to keep to their schedule. Senate leaders set committee hearings to begin on Tuesday with a floor vote “no later” than the week of Sept. 9.
In the interim, lawmakers will be in their home states, where polls show their constituents are not eager to attack Syria. “One constituent said to me: ‘It is horrendous that these children were killed, but they are being killed in other ways also. What’s the difference?’ ” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine.

Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said public opinion would pose a challenge for the president and Congress. “I’d be very surprised if the position of going forward with the strike would reach 50 percent in our state,” he said. “I don’t think it would get to 50.”

The move also means that the period of vacillation before a strike will extend until after Mr. Obama travels to St. Petersburg, Russia, for a summit meeting of the Group of 20 nations, a session that now seems certain to be dominated by the question of what to do about Syria. President Vladimir V. Putin, the host of the meeting, not only has effectively blocked United Nations action, but on Saturday he suggested the chemical attack was a provocation by rebels intended to draw the United States into their war against Mr. Assad.

Presidents in modern times have used military force both with and without Congressional authorization. George Bush and George W. Bush both won votes from lawmakers before wars with Iraq, and Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton launched strikes against Libya, Afghanistan and Kosovo without asking permission.

Although Mr. Obama said as a candidate that a president has no power to launch a military attack except to stop “an actual or imminent threat to the nation,” he acted unilaterally in Libya in 2011 and had no plans to act differently in Syria this time. But he found it much harder to proceed alone, given the British vote and polls showing that the vast majority of Americans want Congress to decide.

United Nations inspectors returned to The Hague on Saturday with samples to test for chemicals from sites in Syria.
MARTEN VAN DIJL / EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

Even allies like Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, one of Mr. Obama’s earliest supporters for president and his handpicked Democratic Party chairman, publicly argued that he had to go to Congress for permission. “The worst thing we can do is put people out on that limb and ask them to potentially risk their lives based on equivocal political support,” Mr. Kaine said.

In making his request, Mr. Obama argued more forcefully than he ever had for military action against Syria, echoing some of the moral outrage expressed by Secretary of State John Kerry a day earlier. “What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?” the president asked.

Mr. Obama also dispatched Mr. Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and others to brief senators by telephone on Saturday and authorized a classified briefing on Capitol Hill on Sunday. Mr. Kerry was also booked on Sunday television news programs to make the case.

Aaron David Miller, a longtime Middle East adviser to presidents, said Mr. Obama had made a persuasive case for action even as he jeopardized it. It “shows just how concerned he is about being alone and his understanding of the realities that even a limited strike can be risky, and he wants to share the responsibility,” he said.

A deeply divided Congress was already gearing up for bitter fights this fall over federal spending, the debt ceiling, immigration and government surveillance, and the surprise Syria vote will invite a complicated, multilayered debate crossing party lines and involving other actors like Israel supporters who worry that failure to follow through in Syria will embolden Iran.

Many lawmakers welcomed the chance to vote. “At this point in the country’s history, it’s important that we have this debate, that we take this vote,” said Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

But some argued that Mr. Obama had blinked in the face of a tough choice and possible backlash, and abdicated responsibility. “I strongly believe that the commander in chief has the absolute right to take military action,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York. “The president seems like he’s weak at every level.”

(04-06-2017, 07:49 PM)GMDino Wrote: So Trump is blaming Obama for not bombing Syria (even though then candidate Trump said bombing would be a bad idea).

Then there's this...from 2013.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/world/middleeast/syria.html?referer=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2F



That's the difference between truth and "fake news, and the difference between understanding how to try and work with the other side when they want to shut you down even if they agree and the twitter diplomacy of Trump.

(04-07-2017, 10:37 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Did you read the first paragraph?  He did what he wanted in Libya, and then switched courses for political points in Syria.

Quote:Libya

In March 2011, Obama announced the U.S. would join allied nations to launch air strikes on Libya. The move came after a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing use of force to protect Libyan civilians, and though regime change wasn't Obama's stated goal at the beginning of the campaign, the airstrikes ended with the death of longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

Quote:Jared Kushner hid dozens of meetings with Russians from his application for top-secret security clearance


Kushner failed to report dozens of contacts with foreign leaders. His lawyer argues Kushner simply forgot

(Credit: Getty/Dominique A. Pineiro)
Jared Kushner, the White House’s key diplomat and business innovator, did not disclose dozens of encounters with foreign leaders when he applied for top-secret security clearance, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

In order for him to gain access to the country’s best-kept secrets, the president’s son-in-law was required to report all contacts he had with foreign government officials over the past seven years. Kushner, however, omitted dozens of meetings, including ones with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., and Sergey Gorkov, the head of Russia’s state-owned Vnesheconombank. The Senate Intelligence Committee informed the White House two weeks ago that it sought to question Kushner about these meetings.


U.S. officials can lose access to intelligence if they fail to disclose foreign contacts, although amending the disclosure forms is often allowed so as to correct any gaps.


Kushner’s lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, is calling the omissions an error. Gorelick said that Kushner simply submitted the forms prematurely and immediately requested the opportunity to provide additional information.



In a statement through his attorney, Kushner said he was willing to meet with the FBI to assuage any concerns.


“During the presidential campaign and transition period, I served as a point-of-contact for foreign officials trying to reach the president-elect. I had numerous contacts with foreign officials in this capacity,” he said. “I would be happy to provide additional information about these contacts.”


The FBI is currently investigating potential ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia. Kislyak and Gorkov, whom Kushner met with in December, are said to be subjects of the probe.

(04-07-2017, 03:00 PM)GMDino Wrote: http://www.salon.com/2017/04/07/jared-kushner-hid-dozens-of-meetings-with-russians-from-his-application-for-top-secret-security-clearance/

(04-07-2017, 10:37 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Did you read the first paragraph?  He did what he wanted in Libya, and then switched courses for political points in Syria.

Quote:TRUMP-TAXES: PRESIDENT SCRAPS TAX PLAN, TIMETABLE THREATENED




WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump has scrapped the tax plan he campaigned on and is going back to the drawing board in a search for Republican consensus behind legislation to overhaul the U.S. tax system.

The administration's first attempt to write legislation is in its early stages and the White House has kept much of it under wraps. But it has already sprouted the consideration of a series of unorthodox proposals including a drastic cut to the payroll tax, aimed at appealing to Democrats.

Some view the search for new options as a result of Trump's refusal to set clear parameters for his plan and his exceedingly challenging endgame: reducing tax rates enough to spur faster growth without blowing up the budget deficit.

Administration officials say it's now unlikely that a tax overhaul will meet the August deadline set by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. But the ambitious pace to figure out a plan reflects Trump's haste to move quickly past a bruising failure to broker a compromise within his own party on how to replace the health insurance law enacted under President Barack Obama.

The White House is trying to learn the lessons from health care. Rather than accepting a bill written by the lawmakers, White House officials are taking a more active role. Administration officials have signaled that they want to pass tax legislation with only Republican votes, yet they've also held listening sessions with House Democrats.

White House aides say the goal is to cut tax rates sharply enough to improve the economic picture in depressed rural and industrial pockets of the country where many Trump voters live. But the administration so far has swatted down alternative ways for raising revenues, such as a carbon tax, to offset lower rates.

Trump, who brands himself as a deal-maker, has not said which trade-offs he might accept and he has remained noncommittal on the leading blueprint, from Rep. Kevin Brady, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

Brady, R-Texas, has proposed a border adjustment system, which would eliminate corporate deductions on imports, to raise $1 trillion over 10 years that could fund lower corporate tax rates.

But that possibility has rankled retailers who say it would lead to higher prices and threaten millions of jobs, while some lawmakers have worried that the system would violate World Trade Organization rules.

Brady has said he intends to amend the blueprint but has not spelled out how he would do so.

Other options are being shopped on Capitol Hill.

One circulating this past week would change the House Republican plan to eliminate much of the payroll tax and cut corporate tax rates. This would require a new dedicated funding source for Social Security.

The change, proposed by a GOP lobbyist with close ties to the Trump administration, would transform Brady's plan on imports into something closer to a value-added tax by also eliminating the deduction of labor expenses. This would bring it in line with WTO rules and generate an additional $12 trillion over 10 years, according to budget estimates. Those additional revenues could then enable the end of the 12.4 percent payroll tax, split evenly between employers and employees, that funds Social Security, while keeping the health insurance payroll tax in place.

This approach would give a worker earning $60,000 a year an additional $3,720 in take-home pay, a possible win that lawmakers could highlight back in their districts even though it would involve changing the funding mechanism for Social Security, according to the lobbyist, who asked for anonymity to discuss the proposal without disrupting early negotiations.

Although some billed this as a bipartisan solution, and President Barack Obama did temporarily cut the payroll tax after the Great Recession, others note it probably would run into firm opposition from Democrats who are loathe to be seen as undermining Social Security.

The White House would not comment on the plan, but said a value-added tax based on consumption is not under consideration "as of now," according to a White House statement.

The lack of detail about how to significantly rewrite tax laws for the first time in 30 years may provide Trump some time to build consensus among Republicans.
But without Trump laying down his hand, lawmakers appear reluctant to back a plan that will likely stir controversy.

"Because there are trade-offs, congressmen need cover from the president to withstand the lobbyists and constituents who are going to complain," said Bill Gale, an economist at the Brookings Institution who worked at the White House Council of Economic Advisers during President George H.W. Bush's administration.

The Trump administration appears to have shut out the economists who helped assemble one of his campaign's tax overhaul plans, which independent analyses show would have increased the budget deficit.

"It's a little frustrating that they feel they have to write a new tax plan when they have a tax plan," said Steven Moore, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation who helped formulate tax policy for the Trump campaign.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said that all of the trial balloons surfacing in public don't represent the work that's being done behind the scenes.

"It's not really what's going on," Portman said. "What's going on is they're working with on various ideas."

Investors are beginning to show some doubts that Trump can deliver. Stocks rallied after his election on the promise of lower taxes and fewer regulations, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dipped 1.2 percent over the past month as the path for health care and tax revisions has become muddied.

"The White House is going to need its own clear direction, or it's going to need to defer to Congress, but saying that your plan is forthcoming and then not producing a plan kind of puts everything in stasis," said Alan Cole, an economist at the conservative Tax Foundation.

Quote:President Trump’s vacations already set to surpass Obama’s total travel expenses


Taxpayers are likely to pay more for Trump's first year in office than they spent on Obama during all eight years

If President Donald Trump thought it looked bad when the Palm Beach County Commissioner proposed turning his Mar-a-Lago resort into a special taxing district, he hasn’t seen anything yet.

Trump’s frequent trips to his palatial Florida resort have so far cost taxpayers more than $21 million, according to a report by CNN. At this rate, — the comparatively measly sum of $97 million.


Although Trump is expected to temporarily halt his Mar-a-Lago visits with the onset of summer in May, it is likely that he will then switch to regularly visiting Trump Tower in New York City and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.


In addition, despite regularly tweeting prior to becoming president that President Barack Obama spent too much time playing golf, Trump has been frequently spotted on the links during the six weekends he has spent at Mar-a-Lago. He has spent 17 days at a golf course during the first 12 weeks of his presidency, according to a report by The New York Times.


By contrast, neither Obama nor President George W. Bush spent any days golfing during the first dozen weeks of their administrations, while President Bill Clinton only spent three days on a golf course. Similarly, while Trump has spent 21 days at a private getaway during the opening weeks of his term, Obama only spent 4, Bush only spent 12, and Clinton never went to a private getaway at all.

(04-12-2017, 09:31 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Nothing on Spicer? I don't know how you can keep your job after trying to suggest that Assad is worse than Hitler by falsely claiming Hitler didn't use chemical weapons on his own people.

(04-12-2017, 09:49 AM)GMDino Wrote: I almost wanted to give him a break on it.  I understood what he was trying to say...but in the end I just didn't have the strength to talk about another statement by him that was wrong/inappropriate.  This entire thing has been a bad joke.

(04-12-2017, 09:43 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/us/politics/white-house-easter-egg-roll-trump.html?_r=0

People are expecting a lackluster Easter Egg Roll this year. What has been described as the most high profile White House event appears to have been mostly ignored until the last limit. In late February, the makers of the wooden eggs traditionally used reached out to the Trumps on Twitter to remind them that deadlines were fast approaching.

Instead of the usual high profile music performances, there will be military bands. About a fifth of the volunteers will be there and they are expecting a little more than half of the attendees as last year's. Despite claims from Spicer that local school districts have been invited, nearby schools told the NYT that they still haven't been formally invited. A military group confirmed that they did not receive their usual invites to give to military families, and members of Congress have apparently not been given tickets to hand out to constituents.

Blame seems to fall on Melania, not the Donald, as she still has not taken up residence at the White House and hasn't hired a full staff to run the social side of the White House.

(04-12-2017, 09:31 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Nothing on Spicer? I don't know how you can keep your job after trying to suggest that Assad is worse than Hitler by falsely claiming Hitler didn't use chemical weapons on his own people.

(04-12-2017, 09:31 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Nothing on Spicer? I don't know how you can keep your job after trying to suggest that Assad is worse than Hitler by falsely claiming Hitler didn't use chemical weapons on his own people.

(04-12-2017, 09:49 AM)GMDino Wrote: I almost wanted to give him a break on it.  I understood what he was trying to say...but in the end I just didn't have the strength to talk about another statement by him that was wrong/inappropriate.  This entire thing has been a bad joke.

(04-12-2017, 10:06 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I truthfully think it was a case of his mouth running faster than his brain. It's just hard to look at it that way when you tie it in to the previous missteps regarding this sort of stuff.