The Trump Swamp: MAGA Nation.

[ToastDunk]

How soon until the r's all call this "sucker/loser" Un-American?

A former Navy SEAL who was involved in the operation that killed Osama bin Laden has condemned Trump for his touting of the conspiracy theory that it was a body double that the US actually killed. “Very brave men said goodby [sic] to their kids to go kill Osama bin Laden. We were given the order by President Obama. It was not a body double,” Robert O’Neill wrote on a post on Twitter Tuesday.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5210 ... -amplifies

comments, cradle, Salty?

cradle, I'm guessing you're not ok with Trump amplifying this gross nonsense.

Salty?

O'Neill has been shunned by SEAL Team Six, and NOW by the President. Damn! Bet he didn't see that one coming. I'm sure their mutual friends at Fox News will go through all sorts of mental gymnastics to patch things up.

[Typical Lax Dad]

How soon until the r's all call this "sucker/loser" Un-American?

A former Navy SEAL who was involved in the operation that killed Osama bin Laden has condemned Trump for his touting of the conspiracy theory that it was a body double that the US actually killed. “Very brave men said goodby [sic] to their kids to go kill Osama bin Laden. We were given the order by President Obama. It was not a body double,” Robert O’Neill wrote on a post on Twitter Tuesday.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5210 ... -amplifies

comments, cradle, Salty?

cradle, I'm guessing you're not ok with Trump amplifying this gross nonsense.

Salty?

I ran into bin Laden on Orchard Beach last Summer. He had shaved his beard but there he was in his Speedo drinking a Red Stripe.

[dislaxxic]

Move Over, Hunter Biden. Meet Eric Branstad, the China Ambassador’s Son Who Got Rich in Trump’s Swamp.

In April 2018, the Trump administration banned Chinese telecom equipment giant ZTE from buying American-made parts, threatening to cripple the company’s worldwide operations. An opening salvo in Trump’s trade war with China, the measure was extreme. But ZTE had violated export controls by selling technology to Iran and North Korea, then breached an agreement with the Commerce Department in which it had pledged to stop. Moreover, ZTE makes technology that can be used for surveillance and has ties to the Chinese military.

Just one month later, however, President Donald Trump unexpectedly tweeted that he might be open to a deal that would free ZTE from the Commerce Department penalty, known as a denial order. “Too many jobs in China lost,” he wrote. Republican lawmakers, Washington analysts, and Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton were aghast. Bolton later called the sudden reversal “policy by personal whim and impulse.” But the White House moved forward anyway. By early June, Commerce and ZTE had reached a preliminary deal. In July, the Commerce Department lifted the ban.

Like the 25,000+ lies he has told while in office, Don the Con continues to lie about and nurture a political Swamp that is FAR deeper and broader then any known in the history of Washington DC. It's growing now, and will undoubtedly have a place carved out for Don once he gets bounced out of office on his keister.

..

[jhu72]

Senior officials tell CNN they are alarmed at White House pressure to grant what would essentially be a no-bid contract to lease the Department of Defense’s mid-band spectrum — premium real estate for the booming and lucrative 5G market — to Rivada Networks, a company in which prominent Republicans and supporters of President Trump have investments.

[jhu72]

“Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s former company landed a $5 million highway-shipping contract last month with the United States Postal Service,” CBS News reports.

“DeJoy continued to own a multimillion-dollar stake in XPO Logistics as of early October.”

[dislaxxic]

Don the Con attempts to perpetuate his own SWAMP deep within the federal bureaucracy

THE OUTGOING ADMINISTRATION has set a ticking time bomb for the incoming one, and planted it into every federal agency the president-elect is about to take over. Through executive action, President Donald Trump has gutted civil service protections, a four-year process that was undertaken to allow him to sweep out federal workers in his second term. Now that such a term isn’t in the cards for Trump, his lieutenants are busy making big changes in federal agencies, potentially upending the work lives of hundreds of thousands of federal employees and sowing chaos in Joe Biden’s first 100 days.

A race is on between those Trump die-hards and the incoming administration, as the Trump team looks to execute on powers they’ve aggregated before the Biden administration can act to stop them.

Beginning in 2017, the Trump administration began to discuss creating a new federal worker classification, called Schedule F. It was finally implemented by executive order on October 21. The new classification would allow Trump’s deputies to effectively hire and fire at will. At the end of every administration, some appointees attempt to “burrow in”: government-speak for converting their appointed roles into a career category, allowing them to stay despite the new regime. The changes under Schedule F could make that process much easier by removing requirements for individuals applying for federal government jobs. And once those officials have successfully burrowed in, they’d have new powers at their disposal. The changes that the Trump administration has already sought under Schedule F would, for instance, remove protections for 88 percent of the employees in the critical Office of Management and Budget, and potentially many more agencies. The OMB, which crafts policy and budgeting across the federal government, is critical to Biden being able to implement much of his executive agenda.

The question, then, is how much damage the Trump appointees can do quickly — and how much of that can be undone. If Biden doesn’t make reversing the order an immediate priority, it’s easy to envision it getting lost amid the chaotic first few months and then forgotten, as Trump’s burrowed employees slash through the ranks of federal employees, replacing them with cronies.

..

[MDlaxfan76]

Perhaps these pardons were what Trump meant by "Drain the Swamp" ?

[cradleandshoot]

Perhaps these pardons were what Trump meant by "Drain the Swamp" ?

Then you have to look at federal prison as a swamp. trump finally was able to drain something.

[MDlaxfan76]

Perhaps these pardons were what Trump meant by "Drain the Swamp" ?

Then you have to look at federal prison as a swamp. trump finally was able to drain something.

Definitely a lot of 'swamp creatures' in these two batches.

[ABV 8.3%]

Senior officials tell CNN they are alarmed at White House pressure to grant what would essentially be a no-bid contract to lease the Department of Defense’s mid-band spectrum — premium real estate for the booming and lucrative 5G market — to Rivada Networks, a company in which prominent Republicans and supporters of President Trump have investments.

This OLD story belongs on the TAATS thread. Hands down.

Your ex-Governor is on the board of Directors (MartinO) ......along with the current POTUSA's close friend Jeb Bush. Since 2016

IS this what the article means when mentioning prominent Republicans

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-release ... 79241.html

Somehow, I think this will be the last time this TAATS story will be addressed

[runrussellrun]

Senior officials tell CNN they are alarmed at White House pressure to grant what would essentially be a no-bid contract to lease the Department of Defense’s mid-band spectrum — premium real estate for the booming and lucrative 5G market — to Rivada Networks, a company in which prominent Republicans and supporters of President Trump have investments.

This OLD story belongs on the TAATS thread. Hands down.

Your ex-Governor is on the board of Directors (MartinO) ......along with the current POTUSA's close friend Jeb Bush. Since 2016

IS this what the article means when mentioning prominent Republicans

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-release ... 79241.html

Somehow, I think this will be the last time this TAATS story will be addressed

The timeline, or timing, IS interesting. Didn't both Jeb Bush and Martin O run for POTUSA in 2016 ? And, yet, they both join a board. Announced JUNE 3rd, 2016. MartinO was long gone, from the POTUSA race, was Jeb Bush? When did he drop out of the POTUSA election?

Don't recall JHU72 being upset about the swamp when this PR announcement came out, in 2016, over 4 years ago.

Governors O'Malley and Bush will support Rivada Networks by providing strategic counsel and guidance, as well as by providing their unique insights into the challenges and needs of America's state governments as they prepare for FirstNet's network rollout.

[runrussellrun]

Senior officials tell CNN they are alarmed at White House pressure to grant what would essentially be a no-bid contract to lease the Department of Defense’s mid-band spectrum — premium real estate for the booming and lucrative 5G market — to Rivada Networks, a company in which prominent Republicans and supporters of President Trump have investments.

This OLD story belongs on the TAATS thread. Hands down.

Your ex-Governor is on the board of Directors (MartinO) ......along with the current POTUSA's close friend Jeb Bush. Since 2016

IS this what the article means when mentioning prominent Republicans

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-release ... 79241.html

Somehow, I think this will be the last time this TAATS story will be addressed

The timeline, or timing, IS interesting. Didn't both Jeb Bush and Martin O run for POTUSA in 2016 ? And, yet, they both join a board. Announced JUNE 3rd, 2016. MartinO was long gone, from the POTUSA race, was Jeb Bush? When did he drop out of the POTUSA election?

Don't recall JHU72 being upset about the swamp when this PR announcement came out, in 2016, over 4 years ago.

Governors O'Malley and Bush will support Rivada Networks by providing strategic counsel and guidance, as well as by providing their unique insights into the challenges and needs of America's state governments as they prepare for FirstNet's network rollout.

what IS even more fun....IS that Jeb Bush's profile has been scrubbed from the RIVERADA boring Directors section. Lower right corner.

I thought tRump hated the Bush's........and yet, them, and the killing machine ex SSgt's helping this phone company thrive, are in co-hoots ?

https://www.rivada.com/#our-people

hmmmm

[ABV 8.3%]

Senior officials tell CNN they are alarmed at White House pressure to grant what would essentially be a no-bid contract to lease the Department of Defense’s mid-band spectrum — premium real estate for the booming and lucrative 5G market — to Rivada Networks, a company in which prominent Republicans and supporters of President Trump have investments.

This OLD story belongs on the TAATS thread. Hands down.

Your ex-Governor is on the board of Directors (MartinO) ......along with the current POTUSA's close friend Jeb Bush. Since 2016

IS this what the article means when mentioning prominent Republicans

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-release ... 79241.html

Somehow, I think this will be the last time this TAATS story will be addressed

The timeline, or timing, IS interesting. Didn't both Jeb Bush and Martin O run for POTUSA in 2016 ? And, yet, they both join a board. Announced JUNE 3rd, 2016. MartinO was long gone, from the POTUSA race, was Jeb Bush? When did he drop out of the POTUSA election?

Don't recall JHU72 being upset about the swamp when this PR announcement came out, in 2016, over 4 years ago.

Governors O'Malley and Bush will support Rivada Networks by providing strategic counsel and guidance, as well as by providing their unique insights into the challenges and needs of America's state governments as they prepare for FirstNet's network rollout.

what IS even more fun....IS that Jeb Bush's profile has been scrubbed from the RIVERADA boring Directors section. Lower right corner.

I thought tRump hated the Bush's........and yet, them, and the killing machine ex SSgt's helping this phone company thrive, are in co-hoots ?

https://www.rivada.com/#our-people

hmmmm

Boy, did YOU call it. Jeb Bush scrubbed....and, certainly, no one wants to discuss the Republican thoughts of Maryland former Democratic Governor and What the heck he is doing on the board of directors and helping all of Trumps conservative friends. Nope.....all right like roaches under the illuninatee LED's scurried away. Any thoughts JHU72? You vote in Maryland, don't you?

[CU88]

There is no lower honor than to be awarded the highest civilian honor by President Trump.


https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/0 ... dom-454494

[Matnum PI]

To put names with faces

[Typical Lax Dad]

To put names with faces

I have a picture of Ted Cruz and my son. It is one I am going to print and frame and make sure it gets passed down from generation to generation so that it can be brought in for show and tell for Americans history classes down the road. He should be ashamed of himself.

[Matnum PI]

Mick Mulvaney resigns: "I called Mike Pompeo last night to let him know I was resigning from that. I can't do it. I can't stay." https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/07/mick-mu ... ollow.html

[CU88]

January 6, 2021
Heather Cox Richardson
Jan 7



Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

This morning, results from the Georgia Senatorial runoff elections showed that Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff had beaten their Republican opponents—both incumbents—by more than the threshold that would require a recount. The Senate is now split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, so the position of majority leader goes to a Democrat. Mitch McConnell, who has bent the government to his will since he took over the position of majority leader in 2007, will be replaced.

With the Democrats in control of both Congress and the Executive Branch, it is reasonable to expect we will see voting rights legislation, which will doom the current-day Republican Party, depending as it has on voter suppression to stay in power.

Trump Republicans and McConnell Republicans had just begun to blame each other for the debacle when Congress began to count the certified electoral votes from the states to establish that Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. The election was not close—Biden won the popular vote by more than 7 million votes and the Electoral College by 306 to 232—but Trump contends that he won the election in a landslide and “fraud” made Biden the winner.

Trump has never had a case. His campaign filed and either lost or had dismissed 62 out of 63 lawsuits because it could produce no evidence for any of its wild accusations. Nonetheless, radical lawmakers courted Trump’s base by echoing Trump’s charges, then tried to argue that the fact voters no longer trusted the vote was reason to contest the certified votes.

More than 100 members of the House announced they would object to counting the votes of certain states. About 13 senators, led by Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), agreed to join them. The move would slow down the count as each chamber would have to debate and take a separate vote on whether to accept the state votes, but the objectors never had anywhere near the votes they needed to make their objections stick.

So Trump turned to pressuring Vice President Mike Pence, who would preside over the counting, to throw out the Biden votes. On Monday, Trump tweeted that “the Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.” This would throw the blame for the loss onto Pence, but the vice president has no constitutional power to do any such thing, and this morning he made that clear in a statement. Trump then tweeted that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.”

It seemed clear that the voting would be heated, but it was also clear that most of the lawmakers opposing the count were posturing to court Trump’s base for future elections. Congress would count Biden’s win.

But Trump had urged his supporters for weeks to descend on Washington, D.C., to stop what he insisted was the stealing of the election. They did so and, this morning, began to congregate near the Capitol, where the counting would take place. As he passed them on the east side of the Capitol, Hawley raised a power fist.

In the middle of the day, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani spoke to the crowd, telling them: “Let’s have trial by combat.” Trump followed, lying that he had won the election and saying “we are going to have to fight much harder.” He warned that Pence had better “come through for us, and if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country.” He warned that Chinese-driven socialists are taking over the country. And he told them to march on Congress to “save our democracy.”

As rioters took Trump at his word, Congress was counting the votes alphabetically by state. When they got to Arizona, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) stood up to echo the rhetoric radicals had been using to discredit the certified votes, saying that public distrust in the election—created out of thin air by Republicans—justified an investigation.

Within an hour, a violent mob stormed the Capitol and Cruz, along with the rest of the lawmakers, was rushed to safety (four quick-thinking staffers brought along the electoral ballots, in their ceremonial boxes). As the rioters broke in, police shot and killed one of them: Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran from San Diego, QAnon believer, and staunch Trump supporter. The insurrectionists broke into the Senate chamber, where one was photographed on the dais of the Senate, shirtless and wearing a bull costume that revealed a Ku Klux Klan tattoo on his abdomen. They roamed the Capitol looking for Pence and other lawmakers they considered enemies. Not finding them, they ransacked offices. One rioter photographed himself sitting at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk with his feet on it.

They carried with them the Confederate flag.

Capitol police provided little obstruction, apparently eager to avoid confrontations that could be used as propaganda on social media. The intruders seemed a little surprised at their success, taking selfies and wandering around like tourists. One stole a lectern.

As the White House, the FBI, the Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security all remained silent, President-Elect Joe Biden spoke to cameras urging calm and calling on Trump to tell his supporters to go home. But CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins later reported that she spoke to White House officials who were “genuinely freaked… out” that Trump was “borderline enthusiastic” about the storming of the Capitol because “it meant the certification was being derailed.”

At 4:17, Trump issued his own video, reiterating his false claims that he had been cheated of victory. Only then did he conclude with: “Go home, we love you, you’re very special.” Twitter immediately took the video down. By nighttime Trump’s Twitter feed seemed to blame his enemies for the violence the president had incited (although the rhythm of the words did not sound to me like Trump’s own usual cadence): “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”

Twitter took down the tweet and banned the president for at least twelve hours for inciting violence; Facebook and Instagram followed suit.

As the afternoon wore on, police found two pipe bombs near the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C., as well as a truck full of weapons and ammunition, and mobs gathered at statehouses across the country, including in Kansas, Ohio, Minnesota, California, and Georgia.

By 5:00, acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller issued a statement saying he had conferred with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Vice President Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and had fully activated the D.C. National Guard.

He did not mention the president.

By late evening, Washington, D.C., police chief Robert J. Contee III announced that at least 52 people had been arrested and 14 law enforcement officers injured. A total of four people died, including one who died of a heart attack and one who tased themself.

White House Counsel Pat Cipollone urged people to stay away from Trump to limit their chances of being prosecuted for treason under the Sedition Act. By midnight, four staffers had resigned, as well as Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger, with other, higher level officials also talking about leaving. Even Trump adviser Stephen Miller admitted it was a bad day. Quickly, pro-Trump media began to insist that the attack was a false-flag operation of “Antifa,” despite the selfies and videos posted by known right-wing agitators, and the fact that Trump had invited, incited, and praised them.

Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis laid the blame for today’s attack squarely at the feet of Trump himself: “Today’s violent assault on our Capitol, and effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump. His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice.”

The attempted coup drew condemnation from all but the radical Trump supporters in government. Former President George W. Bush issued a statement “on insurrection at the Capitol,” saying “it is a sickening and heartbreaking sight.” “I am appalled by the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election,” he said, and accused such leaders of enflaming the rioters with lies and false hopes. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) was more direct: “What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the President of the United States.”

Across the country tonight are calls for Trump’s removal through the 25th amendment, impeachment, or resignation. The Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have joined the chorus, writing to Pence urging him to invoke the 25th. Angry at Trump’s sabotaging of the Georgia elections in addition to the attack on our democracy, prominent Republicans are rumored to be doing the same.

At 8:00, heavily armed guards escorted the lawmakers back to the Capitol, thoroughly scrubbed by janitors, where the senators and representatives resumed their counting of the certified votes. The events of the afternoon had broken some of the Republicans away from their determination to challenge the votes. Fourteen Republican senators had announced they would object to counting the certified votes from Arizona; in the evening count the number dropped to six: Cruz (R-TX), Hawley (R-MO), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), John Kennedy (R-LA), Roger Marshall (R-KS), and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL).

In the House, 121 Republicans, more than half the Republican caucus, voted to throw out Biden’s electors from Arizona. As in the Senate, they lost when 303 Representatives voted in favor.

Six senators and more than half of the House Republicans backed an attempt to overthrow our government, in favor of a man caught on tape just four days ago trying to strong-arm a state election official into falsifying the election results.

Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

[Matnum PI]

from Alabama. This is our government...

Mo Brooks @RepMoBrooks
1h
Please, don’t be like #FakeNewsMedia, don’t rush to judgment on assault on Capitol. Wait for investigation. All may not be (and likely is not) what appears. Evidence growing that fascist ANTIFA orchestrated Capitol attack with clever mob control tactics.

[Matnum PI]

FBI @FBI
1h
The FBI is seeking to identify individuals instigating violence in Washington, D.C. We are accepting tips and digital media depicting rioting or violence in and around the U.S. Capitol on January 6. If you have information, visit http://fbi.gov/USCapitol.

Maybe I'm stating the obvious but i can think of one...